This was announced by the General Statistics Office (GSO) on November 25. According to the GSO, although CPI in Hanoi saw a sudden increase in the prices of rice and foodstuffs due to recent historic torrential rains, the country’s average prices of the three major types of goods in the common commodity basket shrank in two consecutive months. The price of construction materials dropped by 4.86 percent, followed by means of transport (4.4 percent) and food (3.1 percent).

The GSO said CPI of Ho Chi Minh City, which accounted for 20 percent of the country’s total CPI, decreased by 0.69 percent in November.

In addition, prices for oil and gas fell more than 12 percent, helping to reduce the transportation fees, while the price of steel went down by a half compared to the record high of July 2007.

The price of gold also dropped by 5.8 percent in November following a recent reduction in the gold price in the global market, however, in the past 11 months it was still 34.49 percent higher than last year’s corresponding period. The exchange rate between VND and US dollars saw an increase of 2.1 percent in November and 2 percent in the past 11 months.

According to Nguyen Duc Thang, deputy head of the GSO’s trade and price department, the CPI will rise slightly by 0.1 percent in December as the lunar New Year festival (Tet) is drawing near. The figure is expected surge by 22 percent in 2008 compared to the previous year, he added.