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October inflation slows in southern metro
Consumer prices in Ho Chi Minh City fell for the first time this year in October thanks to a drop in food and fuel costs, the city’s statistics department has said.
The Vietnamese government said last week it aims to bring inflation to below 15 percent next year from a forecast 24 percent this year.
Prices in October in the city of 8 million are expected to ease 0.24 percent from September, bringing the annualized inflation rate down to 25.7 percent from 27 percent, the city’s Statistical Office said.
Food prices were still 74.5 percent higher than in October 2007, but eased 0.2 percent compared with September, the office said in its monthly report.
Gold prices increased 3.79 percent from last month while the dollar-dong exchange rate eased 0.02 from September, the report said.
Consumer prices in HCMC serve as an early indication of the national inflation figure, due to be published later this week.
Last week the country’s top fuel importer and retailer Petrolimex slashed retail petrol prices twice by a total of 6 percent following lower global prices.
However, the impact of the fuel price cut would not be seen in this month’s inflation data because statistics agencies stop compiling data on the 15th day of each month to calculate the consumer price index.
Thanhnien
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