Economic news review February 1

The central exchange rate decreased by 31 VND, the VN-Index increased by 8.71 points, the price of RON 95-III gasoline increased by 760 VND, the price of E5 RON gasoline increased by 740 VND... are some notable economic information on February 1.

Economic news review January 30 Economic news review January 31

Economic news review

Domestic news

In the foreign exchange market on February 1, the State Bank listed the central exchange rate at 23,960 VND/USD, a sharp decrease of 31 VND compared to the previous session.

The USD buying price was kept unchanged at 23,400 VND/USD by the State Bank of Vietnam, while the USD selling price was listed at 25,108 VND/USD, 50 VND lower than the ceiling exchange rate.

On the interbank market, the dollar-dong exchange rate closed at 24,400 VND/USD, down 15 VND compared to the session on January 31.

The dollar-dong exchange rate on the free market dropped sharply by 250 VND for buying and 200 VND for selling, trading at 24,700 VND/USD and 24,800 VND/USD.

On February 1, the average interbank VND interest rate increased sharply by 0.10 - 0.22 percentage points in most terms of 1 month or less, except for a decrease of 0.06 percentage points in the overnight term, specifically: overnight 1.0%; 1 week 1.44%; 2 weeks 1.72% and 1 month 1.84%.

The average interbank USD interest rate decreased by 0.02 percentage points at overnight term while increasing by 0.01 percentage points at 1-week term and remaining unchanged at the remaining terms, trading at: overnight 5.19%; 1 week 5.29%; 2 weeks 5.33%, 1 month 5.40%.

Government bond yields in the secondary market remained unchanged at the 3-year term while increasing at the remaining terms, closing at: 3-year 1.19%; 5-year 1.39%; 7-year 1.82%; 10-year 2.29%; 15-year 2.51%.

Yesterday's open market operations, on the mortgage channel, the State Bank of Vietnam offered VND1,000 billion for a 7-day term, the interest rate remained at 4.0%. There was no winning bid volume, no maturity in yesterday's session. Thus, there was VND2.28 billion circulating on the mortgage channel. The State Bank of Vietnam did not offer SBV bills, there were no bills circulating on the market.

The stock market on February 1, despite being under greater pressure in the second half of the afternoon session, still had short increases to close the session in green. At the end of the trading session, VN-Index increased by 8.71 points (+0.75%) to 1,173.02 points; HNX-Index lost 1.40 points (+0.61%) to 230.57 points; UPCoM-Index inched up 0.33 points (+0.38%) to 88.02 points. Market liquidity decreased with a trading value of nearly VND 16,900 billion. Foreign investors continued to net buy nearly VND 162 billion on all three exchanges.

During the petroleum management period on February 1, the Ministry of Finance - Industry and Trade decided to increase the prices of all popular petroleum products on the market from February 1, 2024. Accordingly, the price of RON 95-III gasoline increased by VND 760, to VND 24,160 per liter; E5 RON increased by VND 740, to VND 22,910 per liter. The retail price of diesel increased by VND 620/liter, to VND 20,990/liter, while kerosene increased by VND 380/liter, to VND 21,330/liter. Fuel oil increased by VND 590/kg, to VND 16,080/kg.

According to the latest S&P Global Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) report, Vietnam's manufacturing PMI rose to 50.3 points in January from 48.9 points in December 2023. Overall business conditions improved thanks to a slight increase in new orders and output. Accordingly, recovering domestic and export demand were factors that helped total new orders and new export orders increase for the first time in the past 3 months. This is an encouraging start to 2024 for Vietnam's manufacturing industry.

International News

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said its manufacturing PMI rose to 49.1% in January, up from 47.4% in the previous month and against expectations for a slight decline to 47.2%. Although still showing a slight contraction, this was the highest monthly manufacturing PMI since November 2022.

Next, the number of initial jobless claims in the US for the week ending January 27 was 224 thousand, up from 215 thousand the previous week and contrary to forecasts for a slight decrease to 213 thousand. The average number of claims in the most recent 4 weeks was 207.75 thousand, up 5.25 thousand compared to the average of the previous 4 weeks.

The Bank of England (BoE) left its policy interest rate unchanged at its first meeting of the year. At its meeting yesterday (February 1), the BoE said that the UK's GDP would gradually recover in the coming time after the previous period of stagnation due to the high interest rate environment. The labor market is gradually loosening, but is still considered tight compared to history. Wage growth has also slowed recently. UK inflation in December 2023 fell to 4%, lower than expected in the BoE's November report.

Accordingly, BoE predicts that inflation will continue to decline to the target level of 2.0% in the second quarter of 2024, then increase again in the third and fourth quarters. CPI for the whole year of 2024 may increase by about 2.75%.

At this meeting, the BoE decided to keep the policy rate unchanged at 5.25% to bring inflation back to the target level in a reasonable time. The agency also affirmed that it will continue to closely monitor signs of inflation and the economy to decide how long to maintain the policy rate at the current level.

The European Union Statistical Office (Eurostat) announced that the headline CPI and core CPI in the Eurozone increased by 2.8% and 3.3% respectively compared to the same period in January, both lower than the 2.9% and 3.4% of the previous month, but not down to the 2.7% and 3.2% expected by experts.

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