Surging food and construction costs drove Vietnam's inflation rate to 25.2 percent this month, the highest in more than a decade, the government said yesterday.
Despite authorities' efforts to control inflation, including interest rate hikes, consumer prices were 4 percentage points higher than last month, the Government Statistics Office said.
Vietnam’s inflation rate is among the highest in Asia, and higher food prices in particular are hurting the country’s poor.
PHOTO: AP
Overall food costs were up 42.4 percent from a year ago, driven by a 67.8 percent jump in the price of grain, including rice, the staple food. Housing and construction materials rose 22.9 percent over last year.
Analysts say Vietnam’s surging inflation is driven by both domestic and global forces, including soaring fuel and food costs.
Rapid economic growth and looser lending policies in recent years — which has spurred investment —have also contributed.
The communist government has made fighting inflation its top priority. The central bank raised by interest rates 3 percentage points to restrain borrowing and encourage saving.
In the past few months, the government has also postponed public investment projects and ordered state agencies to cut spending by at least 10 percent.
The impact of these policy changes are likely to be felt in the second half of the year, said Jonathan Pincus, chief economist of the UN Development Program in Hanoi.
“The economy is still healthy, with exports and foreign direct investment soaring,” he said.
Vietnam’s exports were up 27 percent this month from a year ago, and foreign investment pledges reached US$15.3 billion in the first five months of this year, more than double the same period last year.
Still, authorities foresee slower growth ahead.
Earlier this month, the Vietnamese government slashed its annual growth target to 7 percent from 8.5 percent.
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
RSS