Despite a nine-day holiday during the Lunar New year (Tet), this month’s CPI still saw a significant decrease. Specifically, three out of 11 commodities saw sharp reductions, with the sharpest decrease of 4.41% belonging to the transport group. The price of housing and building material group fell 0.41% while the post and telecoms group saw a decline of 0.02%.

Although food and foodstuff demand rose sharply during the Tet holiday, price of the commodity increased only 0.75% thanks to sharp fall in petrol and oil prices lowering transport costs.

Restaurant and food services which account for the largest proportion of the 11 commodities with a CPI calculation increased only 0.53% against January.

In February, the price of gold climbed 2.7% while the US dollar price plummeted 0.2% from the previous month./.

Hoang Quan