The latest report on the socio-economic situation of the General Statistics Office said that gasoline prices, domestic rice prices increasing according to world prices, housing rental prices increasing according to demand are the main reasons causing the consumer price index (CPI) in August 2023 increased by 0.88% compared to the previous month. Compared to December 2022, August CPI increased by 2.02% and 2.96% over the same period last year.

On average in 8 months of 2023, CPI increased by 3.1% over the same period last year; core inflation increased by 4.57%.

In the 0.88% increase in CPI in August 2023 compared to the previous month, there were 10 groups of goods and services with increased price indexes, 1 group of goods with decreased price indexes.

Specifically, 10 groups of goods and services with increased price indexes include:

• Traffic group increased the highest with 3.85% (making CPI increase by 0.37 percentage points) mainly due to: Gasoline price increased by 9.85%; diesel oil price increased by 15.9% due to the influence of domestic price adjustments on August 1st, 11th, and 21st, 2023; public transport service prices increased by 3.79%; prices of new bicycles, motorbikes and cars continued to increase respectively by 0.42%, 0.12%, and 0.16%.
• Education group increased by 0.96% mainly because the school year 2023-2024 students of grades 4, 8, 11 started learning new textbooks. Accordingly, the price of textbooks increased by 3.37% compared to the previous month; the price of notebooks and writing papers of all kinds increased by 1.17%; the price of writing pens of all kinds increased by 1.03%. Besides, the price index of educational services increased by 0.82% due to a number of private schools increasing tuition fees for the 2023-2024 school year.
• Housing and building materials group increased by 0.85% (making the overall CPI increase by 0.16 percentage points) due to a 0.8% increase in rental house prices; kerosene price increased by 15.94%; the price of domestic water increased by 0.93%; Gas price increased by 7% because from August 1, 2023, the domestic gas price was adjusted to increase by 26,000 VND/bottle of 12 kg after the world gas price increased by 77.5 USD/ton (from 387.5 USD/ton to 465 USD/ton). In the opposite direction, the price of housing maintenance materials decreased by 0.15% due to the decrease in steel price; The price of electricity for daily life decreased by 0.89% due to the decrease in consumer demand in the rainy season and cool weather.
• Food and catering services increased by 0.78% (making the general CPI increase by 0.26 percentage points), of which: Food increased by 3.28% (making the general CPI increase by 0.12 percentage points); food increased by 0.48% (making the general CPI increase by 0.1 percentage points); Eating out of home increased by 0.47% (impacting CPI increase by 0.04 percentage points).

• Beverage and tobacco group increased by 0.28% due to high consumption demand during the tourist season. Specifically, the price of juice increased by 0.49%; carbonated soft drinks by 0.31%; Alcohol of all kinds increased by 0.23% and smoking by 0.37%.

• Other goods and services increased by 0.22%, mainly focusing on jewelry, increasing by 0.52%; hair cutting and shampooing services increased by 0.57%; Hospitality supplies and services increased by 0.18%.

• Garment, hat and footwear group increased by 0.19% due to increased demand for shopping to prepare for the new school year. In which, the price of all kinds of fabrics increased by 0.38%; hats increased by 0.26%; footwear by 0.22%; ready-made clothes by 0.16%; garment services increased by 0.32%; shoe repair services increased by 0.5%.

• Equipment and household appliances increased by 0.10%, mainly focusing on items such as: Price of kitchen equipment increased by 1.16%; electric irons increased by 0.6%; microwave oven, oven, induction cooker increased 0.11%. In the opposite direction, the price of gas stoves decreased by 0.46% compared to the previous month; bathroom hot water tank down 0.42%; electric fan decreased by 0.36%.

• The group of culture, entertainment and tourism increased by 0.09%, mainly focusing on the following groups: The price of foreign tourism services increased by 0.13% compared to the previous month; domestic tourism increased by 0.09%; hotels, guest houses by 0.05%; musical instruments by 0.12%; equipment and sports equipment increased by 0.45%. In the opposite direction, cultural equipment decreased by 0.18% as the price of color television decreased by 0.19% and DVD player decreased by 0.03%.

• Medicines and medical services increased by 0.03% because the price of medical equipment increased by 0.23%; Drug prices increased by 0.1%, of which the increase was mainly in the group of pain relievers, antipyretics, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (increased by 0.25%) and drugs acting on the respiratory tract (increased by 0.22%) due to the erratic influence of the changing seasons, leading to an increase in respiratory diseases.

Particularly, the post and telecommunications group decreased by 0.17% due to the decrease in the price of mobile phones and landlines.

Core inflation in August 2023 increased by 0.32% over the previous month, by 4.02% over the same period last year. On average, in the first eight months of 2023, core inflation increased by 4.57% over the same period in 2022, higher than the overall average CPI growth (up by 3.1%).

According to the General Statistics Office, the main reason is that the average domestic gasoline and oil price in the first 8 months of 2023 decreased by 17.56% compared to the same period last year. Gas prices decreased by 11.3% as a factor to restrain the growth rate of the CPI but belongs to the group of goods excluded from the core inflation calculation.