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November CPI surges as food leads the way
The consumer price index (CPI) in November experienced the highest increase within the past decade, said the General Statistics Office on Nov. 24.
The CPI surged by 1.86 percent over October and its increase in November, up by 11.9 percent year-on-year, pushed the CPI of the past 11 months up by 9.58 percent over December 2009 or 8.96 percent as compared with the average of the same period in 2009. Experts said with such high CPI increases, the possibility of keeping inflation at single-digit level in 2010 is slight.
Representing a proportion of nearly 40 percent of the total basket of commodities, foods and food-related services leaped 3.45 percent in November to become the main factor for the CPI increase.
Increases were seen at between 0.23-3.45 percent in ten out of eleven groups of commodities. Only prices of post and telecoms services continued to drop, by 0.03 percent.
Foods recorded an increase of 6.02 percent while foodstuffs went up by 3.27 percent. Following these groups, prices of housing and construction materials posted an increase of 1.74 percent, drink and tobacco 0.94 percent, garment and footwear 0.9 percent, household utensils and facilities 0.74 percent, and medicine and health care services 0.59 percent.
After two months of large increases, educational services lagged in November with the lowest rise of 0.23 percent.
GSO Pricing Department Chief, Nguyen Duc Thang, blamed the dizzying rise of foods and food-related service prices on serious losses caused by natural disasters.
Thang said despite big cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City carrying out measures to stabilize prices, the CPI in these cities still increased sharply due to high demand and low supply, 1.93 percent in Hanoi and 1.73 percent in HCM City, pulling up the country’s CPI.
In November, gold and USD prices on the black market saw many fluctuations. The gold price in November rose by 8.67 percent over October and 36.24 percent over the same month last year.
The USD price in November increased by 3 percent over October and 10.03 percent over the same period last year.
Experts warned of further CPI increases by year end as the resources of foods and foodstuff in many localities, especially central provinces where natural disasters have impacted, would not recover quickly.
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