Releasing the second-quarter and first-half socio-economic report, NSO Director General Nguyen Thi Huong said June’s CPI was still up 3.21% from December 2025 and 4.69% higher than a year earlier. Prices rose at an average annual pace of 5.25% in the second quarter, while headline inflation averaged 4.38% for the first six months. Core inflation climbed 4.12% over the same period.
Huong said the Government rolled out a coordinated package of policies in the first half to steady the broader economy, keep a lid on prices and shield key economic balances from global headwinds and mounting cost pressures.
According to her, fiscal and monetary policies stayed tightly in sync, while officials managed the domestic fuel market with a flexible approach that tracked global price swings and local supply-demand conditions to curb volatility. Vietnam also deepened international partnerships to diversify energy supplies.
Compared with May, June’s prices fell by 0.33% in cities and 0.45% in rural areas. Four of the 11 major groups of goods and services got cheaper, while seven became more expensive.
In a reversal from 2025, May saw the sharpest year-over-year CPI spike in the first half at 5.6%, while January notched the smallest annual gain at just 2.53%. Annual inflation came in at 3.35% in February, 4.65% in March and 5.46% in April. Taken together, average CPI ran at 4.38% through the first half, a faster clip than the 3.27% rise posted a year earlier.
The NSO pinned much of the pickup on higher global fuel costs that pushed up gasoline and cooking gas prices at home. Pricier housing, utilities, building materials, food and restaurant meals added more fuel as both input costs and consumer demand gathered pace.
Housing, electricity, water, fuel and construction materials led all spending categories, soaring 6.72% from a year ago and contributing 1.53 percentage points to overall inflation. Rents rose 6.32% as maintenance and operating bills grew fatter, while home maintenance materials rocketed 14.12% on expensive construction supplies and a rush of home building and renovation. Household electricity rates climbed 5.54% amid higher power use.
Transportation costs accelerated 5.23% year-over-year, adding 0.52 percentage points to the headline rate, with fuel alone jumping 8.9%. Food and catering prices rose 4.79%, chipping in 1.72 points. Education costs edged up 3.3%, contributing 0.2 points after a number of private schools and vocational establishments raised tuition for the 2025-2026 school year.
The NSO also reported that the domestic gold price index tumbled 8.46% in June from May but remained 24.11% above a year earlier. Gold was down 2.72% from the late 2025. For the full second quarter, the gold index averaged a 36.84% year-on-year surge, while the first-half average exploded 58.12% from the same period of 2025.
The US dollar price index, meanwhile, inched up 0.11% in June from May and 0.57% from a year earlier, though it was still 0.17% lower than at end-2025. The index rose 0.93% in the second quarter and 1.75% in the first half compared with the same period last year./.
