HANOI: The country’s consumer price index (CPI), during the first month of 2016, remained unchanged compared to the previous month, the lowest level for the past decade, excluding January of 2015.
The CPI in December last year increased only 0.02 per cent over November. Statistics released yesterday from the General Statistics Office (GSO) showed that the index also inched up only 0.8 per cent year-on-year.
Do Thi Ngoc, deputy director of the GSO’s Consumer Price Index Department, said that except for January last year, when the index declined 0.2 per cent against the previous month, the month-on-month rise of the index in January, from 2007 to 2014, ranged between 0.32 per cent and 2.38 per cent.
January often saw the CPI grow significantly, as domestic demands for goods, especially food and consumer items, rise sharply ahead of the country’s largest festival of Tet (Lunar New Year).
Ngoc attributed the low index in January this year to a 2.82 per cent reduction in transport costs, after twice having reduced petrol prices by 6.44 per cent during the month. The reduction contributed to a slide of 0.27 percentage points in the reduction of the country’s CPI.
Further, the decline in transport fees also helped in the decrease of prices of many other commodities and services. According to the GSO, ten commodity items used to calculate the CPI reported to have slight increases of under 0.9 per cent in January.
Prices of food and catering services, which account for 40 per cent of the CPI, rose only 0.25 per cent, while the increasing cost of beverages and cigarettes was 0.44 per cent.
On the other hand, January saw prices of some items increase, of which education costs reported the highest rise of 0.89 per cent due to a rise of school fees in four cities and provinces, including Ha Noi, according to the Government’s price rising itineraries.
