Falling food prices helped curb the CPI in the first half of 2017.
The sharp increase of the CPI was attributed to price hikes in healthcare services and tuition fees, said the Director General of GSO Nguyen Bich Lam.
"Prices of healthcare services have seen an increase of 23.44% while tuition fees were up by 1.55%," Lam noted.
Soaring prices in beverages, tobacco, and garments during the Lunar New Year also contributed to the rise of the six-month index.
Meanwhile, falling foods prices of 1.74%, especially the sharp fall in pork prices have helped curbed the CPI in the period, Lam said.
June's CPI slightly decreased by 0.17% against the previous month due to the falling prices in three out of eleven groups of restaurant services, transport and post and telecommunications services.
Slight price increases were seen in the remaining eight commodity baskets, including housing and construction material (0.53 percent), culture, entertainment and tourism (0.19 percent), education (0.09 percent), beverages and tobacco (0.1 percent), equipment and household commodities (0.08 percent), garment-textile, footwear (0.05 percent), goods and other services (0.05 percent), and medicine and health care services (0.01 percent).
