Prices of many commodity groups increased sharply in the first two months of this year, especially housing and construction materials and education.
On February 28, the General Statistics Office said that the consumer price index (CPI) in February 2023 increased by 0.45% compared to the previous month. Compared to December 2022, CPI this month increased by 0.97% and compared to the same period last year, CPI in February 2023 increased by 4.31%.
Notably, the average CPI in the first 2 months of this year also increased by 4.6% over the same period last year. This is a pretty high increase.
Talking about the reason for the sharp increase in the average CPI in two months, the statistics agency said that the education tuition fee in the first two months of this year increased by 11% compared to the same period in 2022 because some localities have increased tuition fees again after the first two months of this year. while exempting or reducing tuition fees in the 2021-2022 school year to share difficulties with people during the pandemic, and in the 2022-2023 school year, a number of provinces and centrally run cities have increased tuition rates, Overall CPI increased by 0.68% percentage points.
The group of housing and construction materials in the first two months of the year increased by 7.41% over the same period last year due to the increase in cement, iron, steel and sand prices in line with the price of input materials and the increase in house rent, causing CPI to increase. overall increase by 1.39 percentage points.
Similarly, the price of food items in 2 months increased by 4.97% over the same period last year, causing CPI to increase by 1.06 percentage points, of which the price of pork increased by 3.02%, fat increased by 6.9 %. %, causing the price of processed meat to increase by 5.09%.
The average price of electricity for domestic use in the first two months of 2023 also increased by 3.04% over the same period last year, contributing to the overall CPI increase of 0.1 percentage points.
Due to the fact that January falls on the Lunar New Year, the export price of rice is high, so the domestic price of rice increases, making the price of rice in the first 2 months of 2023 increase by 2.19% compared to the same period last year, causing the overall CPI to increase by 0 .06 percentage points.
In particular, the price index of culture, entertainment and tourism groups in the first two months of the year increased by 5.02% over the same period last year.
In the opposite direction, the General Statistics Office also pointed out a number of reasons for the decrease in CPI in the first two months of 2023: domestic gasoline prices decreased by 7.14% compared to the same period last year, the impact of reducing the overall CPI. 0.26 percentage points.
The average price index of the post and telecommunications group in 2 months decreased by 0.24% compared to the same period in 2022 due to the decrease in the price of old generation phones.