The consumer price index (CPI) last month soared to a 19-month high of 3.08 percent from a year earlier, as food and services prices grew over the Lunar New Year holiday, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
Stripping out the holiday effect, the inflationary gauge rose 2.43 percent in the first two months, slowing from 2.7 percent in December last year, DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) said, predicting that the CPI could lose some momentum this month.
“It is usual for caregivers, barbers and taxi drivers to charge extra fees in keeping with tradition before and through the holiday,” Tsao said, adding that hotels, restaurants, travel agencies and entertainment facilities did the same.
Photo: CNA
That explained why prices for miscellaneous items climbed 4.25 percent, as caregiving costs spiked 25.87 percent, while prices for jewelry and personal accessories advanced 4.46 percent, the DGBAS report showed.
For similar reasons, spending on education and entertainment was 3.72 percent higher year-on-year, it added. Hotels, restaurants and travel agencies raised charges to reflect strong demand and extra personnel compensation during the holiday.
Food costs, the largest chunk with 25 percent of the weighting, rose 4.49 percent, as fruit prices shot up 20.71 percent due to bad weather last year, Tsao said.
Meat prices gained 5.45 percent on the back of more expensive fodder, the report said, adding that dining prices climbed 4 percent.
Vegetable prices fell 8.62 percent as a harvest drove up supply and eased price hikes in overall food costs, Tsao said.
Core CPI, a more reliable long-term price tracker because it excludes volatile items, expanded 2.9 percent last month, the DGBAS said.
The reading in the first two months increased at a more tolerable 2.27 percent, it said.
Upcoming electricity rate hikes could pose uncertainty, but is hopefully controllable, Tsao said.
A 10 percent hike in electricity rates across the board might drive up inflation by 0.12 percentage points annually, he said, adding that it is difficult to measure indirect influences as some firms would pass the extra financial burden onto consumers, while others would absorb the costs themselves.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday downplayed the impact of higher electricity rates, saying that a 5 percent hike for residential electricity would lead to an increase of NT$9 per month for those consuming less than 120 kilowatts-per-hour (kWh) and an increase of NT$34 a month for those consuming up to 330kWh.
Taiwan’s residential electricity rates are the fifth-lowest in the world and the industrial electricity rates are the third-lowest, Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) told legislators yesterday.
Meanwhile, the producer price index (PPI), which captures price changes from a seller’s viewpoint, expanded 0.32 percent last month, but fell 0.12 percent in the first two months compared with a year earlier, the DGBAS said.
Tsao attributed the latest PPI movements to cheaper metal, but higher agricultural product prices, in addition to a soft local currency versus the greenback.
additional reporting by Lisa Wang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would not produce its most advanced technologies in the US next year, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the comment during an appearance at the legislature, hours after the chipmaker announced that it would invest an additional US$100 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in the US. Asked by Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) if TSMC would allow its most advanced technologies, the yet-to-be-released 2-nanometer and 1.6-nanometer processes, to go to the US in the near term, Kuo denied it. TSMC recently opened its first US factory, which produces 4-nanometer
PROTECTION: The investigation, which takes aim at exporters such as Canada, Germany and Brazil, came days after Trump unveiled tariff hikes on steel and aluminum products US President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered a probe into potential tariffs on lumber imports — a move threatening to stoke trade tensions — while also pushing for a domestic supply boost. Trump signed an executive order instructing US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to begin an investigation “to determine the effects on the national security of imports of timber, lumber and their derivative products.” The study might result in new tariffs being imposed, which would pile on top of existing levies. The investigation takes aim at exporters like Canada, Germany and Brazil, with White House officials earlier accusing these economies of
Teleperformance SE, the largest call-center operator in the world, is rolling out an artificial intelligence (AI) system that softens English-speaking Indian workers’ accents in real time in a move the company claims would make them more understandable. The technology, called accent translation, coupled with background noise cancelation, is being deployed in call centers in India, where workers provide customer support to some of Teleperformance’s international clients. The company provides outsourced customer support and content moderation to global companies including Apple Inc, ByteDance Ltd’s (字節跳動) TikTok and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. “When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard
PROBE CONTINUES: Those accused falsely represented that the chips would not be transferred to a person other than the authorized end users, court papers said Singapore charged three men with fraud in a case local media have linked to the movement of Nvidia’s advanced chips from the city-state to Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek (深度求索). The US is investigating if DeepSeek, the Chinese company whose AI model’s performance rocked the tech world in January, has been using US chips that are not allowed to be shipped to China, Reuters reported earlier. The Singapore case is part of a broader police investigation of 22 individuals and companies suspected of false representation, amid concerns that organized AI chip smuggling to China has been tracked out of nations such
RSS