 |
| People shop for food in a market in Thanh Hoa Province. The nation's consumer price index in June grew 0.05 per cent over the previous month. — VNS Photo Doan Tung |
HA NOI (Biz Hub)— The consumer price index in June inched up by 0.05 per cent after a light reduction of 0.06 per cent in May, the General Statistics Office (GSO) announced yesterday.
The CPI in the first half of the year increased 2.4 per cent against last December and 6.69 per cent against last June.
This showed that CPI growth could be kept to the 7-8 per cent rate set by the National Assembly, said director of the GSO's Price Department Nguyen Duc Thang.
Thang stressed that June had the lowest growth rate in the past nine years and that CPI for the first six months was similarly low.
He attributed the June increase to a surge in petrol prices and slight reductions of the price for rice and food: 0.62 per cent and 0.03 per cent, respectively. Rice and food accounted for 40 per cent of total goods and services used to calculate the CPI.
The reduction of rice and food prices was due to high supply of those products, in addition to the fact that consumers consumed less poultry and cattle due to diseases at home and in neighbouring countries, he said.
Meanwhile, the group of garment, textile, leather and footwear saw the highest increase in June: 0.42 per cent. Prices surged 0.32 per cent for beverages and tobacco and 0.4 per cent for cultural, entertainment and tourism products.
The price of gold was not used to calculate the CPI. It fell 4.11 per cent in June against the previous month and 15.1 per cent in the first half of the year compared with the same period of last year.
The US dollar price surged 0.84 per cent in June and 0.84 per cent in the first half of the year. — VNS
People shop for food in a market in Thanh Hoa Province. The nation's consumer price index in June grew 0.05 per cent over the previous month. — VNS Photo Doan Tung