Nguyen Duc Thang, Head of the General Statistics Office’s Price Statistics Department, said the rise is attributable to increased education costs at the beginning of the new academic year. In September, nine out of the 11 commodity groups recorded price hikes of up to 6.38%, with the highest increase for education and the lowest for home equipment and utensils. The implementation of the 2014-2015 tuition fee increase in some localities, rice price hikes in southern provinces, and soaring prices for food and entertainment services over the four-day Independence Day vacation were behind this month’s CPI increase.

Statisticians forecast that October will see a similar CPI rise as prices for consumer goods and food will increase slightly.