CPI rises 0.59% in September

VGP – The consumer price index (CPI) in September saw a month-on-month growth of 0.59% and a year-on-year surge of 3.4%. In the first nine months, CPI picked up 3.79% against the same period last year, the General Statistics Office reported.

September 29, 2017 3:11 PM GMT+7

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Noticeably, education witnessed the sharpest rise of 5% out of nine groups with higher costs. Besides, beverage and tobacco had the lowest price hike, up only 0.02%. In September, costs of cultural, entertainment, tourism products declined by 0.08% while post and telecom services went down by 0.04%, respectively.

Deputy Director of GSO's Consumer Price Index Department Do Thi Ngoc attributed the 0.14% price hike of fresh food to direct impacts of floods and heavy rain.

Specially, prices of fresh poultry jumped 0.65%; fresh aquaculture up 0.31%; vegetables 1.2%. However, thanks to abundant supply, prices of pork still dropped 1.13%.

The adjustments of retail petrol on September 5 and September 20 made transport costs increase 1.51%; leading total CPI to rise 0.14%.

In addition, the enforcement of Circular 02/2017/TT-BYT on higher medical costs for non-insurance card holders in Lang Son, Quang Ngai, and Lao Cai affected healthcare costs and pushed it up by 0.31%.

The expert attributed the 5% growth rate of education cost to higher tuition fees in line with the roadmap as stipulated at Decree 86/2015/ND-CP.

In September, gold price went up 2.61%. Meanwhile, USD price rose by 0.03%./.

By Kim Loan