The consumer price index (CPI) last month showed a 1.82 percent rise from a year earlier, the lowest in eight months and below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food costs held relatively stable, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The inflationary gauge is likely to hover below the 2 percent level going forward, in the absence of major abnormal surprises, despite Typhoon Krathon earlier this month and the recent rise in international oil prices, DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) said.
“The crop damage wreacked by Typhoon Krathon is not as serious as that left by typhoons a year earlier,” Tsao said.
Photo: CNA
Food costs last month grew a moderate 3 percent, as fruit prices rose 17.37 percent, but vegetable prices decreased 4.21 percent and egg prices declined 15.49 percent, the DGBAS said.
The core CPI, a more reliable long-term price tracker because it strips out volatile items, increased 1.79 percent, virtually unchanged from one month earlier and affirming a stable consumer price trend, the statistics agency said, adding that the CPI value after seasonal adjustments gained 0.38 percent.
However, the public might still feel the pinch because dining out prices climbed 2.98 percent, rents increased 2.5 percent, and medicine and healthcare prices rose 2.61 percent from a year earlier, Tsai said.
Shelter prices also expanded 2.39 percent, attributable to more expensive home maintenance costs, as well as electricity rate hikes from April onward, while education and entertainment prices added 1.79 percent, DGBAS data showed.
The producer price index (PPI), which measures the price movements of goods from a seller’s perspective, shrank 0.33 percent year-on-year last month, owing to price corrections for international fuel, food and electronic components, the agency said.
In the first nine months of this year, the CPI grew 2.26 percent, while the PPI rose by 1.47 percent from the same period of last year, it said.
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
Taiwanese artificial intelligence (AI) server makers are expected to make major investments in Texas in May after US President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office and amid his rising tariff threats, Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association (TEEMA, 台灣電子電機公會) chairman Richard Lee (李詩欽) said yesterday. The association led a delegation of seven AI server manufacturers to Washington, as well as the US states of California, Texas and New Mexico, to discuss land and tax issues, as Taiwanese firms speed up their production plans in the US with many of them seeing Texas as their top option for investment, Lee said. The
RSS