Power, petrol hike could push March CPI up 2 pct

The consumer price index (CPI) in March is likely to increase by 2 percent month on month, on the back of a nationwide hike in prices of electricity of petrol.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the expected figure will raise the country’s CPI to 5.78 percent in the first three months of this year, while the whole year’s target set by the National Assembly (NA) in under 7 percent.

The new price benchmark is resulted from the increase in electricity and petroleum prices together with the fluctuation of the dong/US dollar forex rate, which in turn will continue to make impacts on many commodities and services.

The domestic market this month is suffering heavy impacts from many factors, including the rising prices of many material and fuel items on the global market that will cause strong influences in the domestic input and import operations, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

In addition, the electricity and petroleum prices have been adjusted up together with the forex rate fluctuation will continue to cause impacts on many goods and services and will set up a new price level.

The difficulty in electricity supply may affect the production of some sectors.

In February, the prices of many commodities such as food, sugar, animal feed, paper, and cement increased slightly and the price of milk, steel, fertilizer and petroleum surged strongly.

The reason was due to the price of many essential items in the world continuing to soar and the forex rate increasing sharply, causing impacts on the price of imported products.

The total retail sales and services in the first two months this year reached 304.3 trillion dong, rising 23.7 percent from the same period of 2010. Excluding the price factor, the year-on-year rise was 10.2 percent. – Tuoitre

Tags: Vietnam CPI, Vietnam CPI 2011, Vietnam economic, Vietnam economy