Vietnam April data likely showed steady growth

Vietnam is scheduled to release key April data over 24-30 April. CPI inflation data on 24 April will likely show that inflation was steady at 1.05% y/y, versus 0.93% in March. 

The decline in global oil prices has caused Vietnam's CPI inflation to trend down to historical lows of below 1% since January. Food inflation likely contracted for the third consecutive month in April while housing and construction prices also declined. 

The benign inflation outlook should provide further room for policy rate cuts in 2015. A policy rate cut of 50bps is expected in H1-2015. Vietnam will also release industrial production, retail sales and trade data for April. 

"We expect export and import growth to have slowed down slightly from March, while IP and retail sales likely rose in the month", says Standard Chartered.