The nation’s consumer price index (CPI) last month grew 2.1 percent year-on-year, faster than the central bank’s 2 percent target for the second straight month, as food prices remained elevated on tight supply linked to heavy rainfall, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The inflationary gauge finished last year with a 2.18 percent hike, exactly the same as the statistics agency projected in November last year, but is likely to begin falling, it said.
“Food prices climbed to a 40-month high of 4.05 percent, while dining costs and rents displayed no signs of deceleration, at 3.03 percent and 2.61 percent respectively,” explaining why inflation turned out worse than expected, DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) said, after speculating last month that the CPI would drop below 2 percent.
Photo: CNA
Vegetable prices spiked 30.9 percent year-on-year, as the negative impact of typhoons and rainstorms lingered, Tsao said, adding that fruits, cooking oil and fishery products also picked up noticeably.
Food costs alone pushed up the CPI reading by 1.1 percentage points, he said, calling the uptrend transient, as wholesale food prices had already demonstrated corrections earlier this month.
People might feel the pinch more acutely because prices for frequently purchased items gained 3.12 percent, he added.
Core CPI, a more reliable long-term price tracker as it excludes volatile items, expanded a benign 1.65 percent, Tsao said, adding that the latest CPI data shed 0.02 percent from one month earlier and ticked up only 0.15 percent after seasonal adjustments.
Furthermore, medicine and health, miscellaneous items and shelter costs remained stubborn inflation drivers with increases of 2.44 percent, 2.55 percent and 2.38 percent respectively, he said.
The producer price index (PPI), a measure of the price movements of goods from a seller’s perspective, advanced 2.92 percent, gaining significantly from a revised 1.07 percent in November last year, the DGBAS said.
For the whole of last year, the CPI expanded 2.18 percent, above the central bank’s 2 percent target for the third consecutive year, Tsao said, pinning the blame on service and shelter charges, in addition to food price hikes.
The PPI registered a mild annual rise of 1.35 percent, moderated by international raw material price corrections, he said.
It is noteworthy that the CPI for households comprised of members aged 65 or older hit 2.37 percent last year, higher than the average of 2.18 percent, because they spent more on food as well as medicine and healthcare, the DGBAS said.
The phenomenon is bound to deepen as Taiwan enters a super-aged society this year when people aged 65 and older constitute 20 percent of the population.
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