Southeast Asia Information Port (www.dnyxxg.com) – A socio-economic report released by the Statistics Department of Vietnam's Ministry of Finance on the morning of April 4th showed that Vietnam's Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 1.23% month-on-month in March 2026, and the year-on-year increase reached 4.65%, setting a five-year record for the highest March increase in five years; compared with December 2025, the cumulative increase was 2.44%. In the first quarter of 2026, Vietnam's CPI rose 3.51% year-on-year, showing a characteristic of periodic price fluctuations.
The report pointed out that the core driving factors for the March CPI increase were the rise in international fuel prices leading to domestic gasoline price adjustments, and the increase in raw material and transportation costs pushing up the prices of building materials. Looking at specific categories, among the 11 major consumer goods and services, 9 categories saw price increases, while 2 categories saw decreases, showing a clear divergence in price movements.
Among them, transportation prices saw the largest increase, rising 12.85% month-on-month, contributing 1.28 percentage points to the total CPI increase. This increase was mainly due to soaring global energy prices: gasoline prices rose 29.72% month-on-month, while diesel prices surged by 57.03%. Housing, water, electricity, fuel, and building materials saw a 0.77% month-on-month increase. Although electricity and domestic water prices slightly decreased due to reduced consumption, rising building material costs still drove the overall increase in this category.
In addition, pharmaceuticals and medical services, beverages and tobacco, household appliances, information and communication, education, and other goods and services all saw slight increases. Among them, the pharmaceutical price index rose 0.49% month-on-month, mainly due to increased import costs of pharmaceutical raw materials and costs in production and distribution.
The two categories that saw price decreases were: food and catering services (down 0.59% month-on-month, with food prices falling 1.41%); and culture, entertainment, and tourism (down slightly by 0.05% month-on-month due to a decline in demand after the Spring Festival).
Regarding first-quarter data, the education price index rose 3.21% year-on-year, mainly due to tuition adjustments by some private schools, private institutions, and vocational training institutions for the 2025-2026 academic year; the transportation price index rose 1.07% year-on-year, with fuel prices rising 0.23%, the sharp increase in gasoline prices in March being a key driving factor. It is worth noting that the information and communication price index fell 0.20% year-on-year, becoming the main factor suppressing the first-quarter CPI increase, due to lower prices for some technical equipment.
As for core inflation, core inflation rose 0.47% month-on-month and 3.96% year-on-year in March 2026; the average core inflation in the first quarter of 2026 rose 3.63% year-on-year, with overall price levels remaining relatively stable. (End)
