Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Nov. 30 issued a Directive to call for stronger production and price stabilisation during the upcoming Lunar New Year Holiday.

Under Directive 2164/CT-TTg, ministries, sectors and localities must focus on removing legal barriers and create favourable conditions for businesses to expand production to ensure smooth provision of key commodities like rice, poultry, meat, vegetables, milk, construction materials, medicines and travel services.

The Ministry of Finance was assigned to coordinate with other relevant ministries and localities to maintain the prices of coal, electricity and petrol.

The State Bank of Vietnam must take strong measures to stabilise the prices of gold and foreign currencies as well as interest rates.

Severe punishments will be given to those who speculate or corner gold and foreign currencies on the market.

Inspections will be tightened against speculation, smuggling, and trade fraud, and criminal prosecution will be applied if necessary.

So far of this year, the Government has already implemented measures to develop production, and ensure price stabilisation, and the balance of supply and demand for goods and services.

The national average consumer price index in 11 months exceeded the annual forecast with a year-on-year increase of 8.96 percent.

At the beginning of this year, the Government targeted a nationwide CPI of eight percent.

In November alone, Viet Nam's CPI rose 1.86 percent over the previous month. This figure increased by 11.09 percent over November 2009, and 9.58 percent over December 2009.

In the Directive, Dung said the cause of the problem was a few organisations and individuals that did not take price management seriously./.