CPI increased by 0.22% mainly due to demand for rice export collection.

On August 24, the General Statistics Office announced that the consumer price index (CPI) in August increased by 0.22% compared to the previous month and increased by 4.31% compared to the same period last year.

Illustration photo: VNA

This increase has caused the CPI in the past 8 months to increase slightly by 1.84% (compared to December 2013) and the average CPI in the eight months to increase by 4.73% compared to the same period in 2013.

Specifically, the consumer price index in August increased only 8/11 groups in the basket of goods, with an increase of 0.06% - 0.45%. Accordingly, the group of food and catering services had the highest price index increase of 0.45%.

Ms. Do Thi Ngoc, Deputy Director of the Price Statistics Department, General Statistics Office, said the reason for the increase in CPI this month is that rice exporting enterprises increased rice purchases for export, so rice prices in the southern provinces increased.

In addition, the demand for food for the 15th day of the 7th lunar month increased along with increased input costs, so the prices of pork, beef, chicken and fresh seafood increased.

In addition, in August students will prepare for the 2014-2015 school year, so the need to buy clothes, shoes and books will increase compared to last month.

According to the Analysis Report from the General Statistics Office, the highest increase in the food price index in August was 0.45% due to rice exporting enterprises in the southern provinces increasing rice collection to fulfill delivery contracts (currently about 2 million tons of rice have been signed but not yet delivered).

As of July 31, the country had exported 3.6 million tons of rice, especially this year, rice export contracts to the Philippines and Malaysia were signed at the end of the winter-spring crop and the beginning of the summer-autumn crop, contributing to the increase in domestic food prices. In addition, the large volume of rice exported to China through unofficial channels also had an impact on the increase in wholesale and retail prices.

Meanwhile, rice prices in the northern provinces have decreased because the northern provinces have just harvested the winter-spring crop with high productivity and abundant supply, so the price of ordinary rice often decreases from 500 VND/kg to 1,000 VND/kg depending on the type.

However, besides the factors causing price increases, Ms. Ngoc also pointed out some factors contributing to restraining CPI this month, such as the prices of essential goods in the world being quite stable.

For example, domestic gasoline prices were adjusted in 3 phases (on July 18, July 28 and August 7, accordingly, gasoline prices decreased by 730 VND/liter, diesel prices decreased by 650 VND/liter, kerosene prices decreased by 630 VND/liter), so the gasoline price index decreased by 0.16% compared to the previous month, while the public transport service price index also decreased by 0.15% compared to the previous month.

During the month, some commodity groups also had price decreases, such as the average gas price in August decreased by 1.41% (because gas businesses reduced 12,000 VND/12kg cylinder from August 1, currently the maximum retail gas price to consumers is 384,000 VND/12kg cylinder, because the world gas price in August was about 790 USD/ton, down 40 USD/ton compared to the price in July.) In addition, kerosene prices have recently been adjusted 3 times (on July 18, July 28 and August 7 with a total decrease of 630 VND/liter.)

“In addition, construction material prices have stabilized because this month is the rainy season, so construction demand has slowed down,” said Ms. Ngoc.

In August, the domestic gold price index also decreased by 0.34% due to fluctuations in world gold prices and the USD price in the free market also decreased by 0.26%.

According to Vietnam+