Vietnam’s consumer price index (CPI) in September rose by 1.06 percent over the previous month as a result of increases in electricity price and school fee following the start of the new school year.

The figure represented a rise of 4.63 percent against December last year, according to statistics released by the General Statistic Office (GSO) on September 24.

Nine out of 11 items in the commodity basket posted price hikes, with the highest level of 9.38 percent seen in the education sector.

Especially, the group of transport and telecommunication service recorded a slight reduction in price.

The sharp increase of September CPI was also attributed to gas and house renting price hikes, at 2.28 percent and 0.48 percent respectively.

In the month, the domestic gold price increased 1.97 percent, while the price of US dollar was down by 0.26 percent in comparison to August.

Nguyen Duc Thang, head of the GSO’s Price Statistic Department, forecast that the CPI in October will go up slightly by 0.5-0.6 percent over this month as the healthcare and education services are not fluctuating any more.

Prices of necessities such as food and foodstuff, housing and construction materials, medicine and health services will also grow gently, he added.-VNA