The consumer price index (CPI) last month accelerated to an 11-month high of 2.66 percent, as goods and services grew more expensive over the Lunar New Year holiday, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
Stripping out the holiday effect, the headline inflationary reading advanced a milder 2.03 percent, DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) said, suggesting that CPI growth would return to the central bank’s 2 percent target this month.
“The weeklong holiday, which fell in January this time around and in February last year, bolstered the CPI gauge by 0.63 percentage points,” the official said.
Photo: CNA
That came after restaurants, hotels and entertainment facilities, as well as travel agencies, barbers, taxis, babysitters and other service providers, raised price tags over the holiday, Tsao said.
Prices should return to normal after the holiday, he added.
Consumer prices rose 0.55 percent from a month earlier and a benign 0.25 percent after seasonal adjustments, the DGBAS report showed.
Core CPI — a more reliable long-term price tracker as it excludes volatile fruit, vegetable and energy prices — expanded 2.26 percent, putting an end to three straight quarters below the 2 percent level.
Prices of miscellaneous item posted the steepest increase of 4.16 percent, as caregivers and hairdressers raised charges by 14.98 percent, in keeping with tradition, the DGBAS said.
For similar reasons, the prices of jewelry and personal accessories climbed 4.97 percent and 7.69 percent respectively, the agency said.
Food costs, the largest chunk, rose 3.72 percent, as vegetable prices gained 20.3 percent, while fruit and cooking oil swelled by 10.46 percent and 5.66 percent respectively, muting a 19.87 percent decline in egg prices, it said.
Education and entertainment costs gained 3.47 percent, it added.
The holiday effect had much to do with these price gains, Tsao said.
However, the holiday season had little to do with the 2.36 and 2.13 increases in shelter and medicine and healthcare fees, the agency said.
CPI growth for elderly people increased 3 percent, higher than the average, which is unfavorable to the nation’s fast-growing group of people who rely on labor pensions alone.
The producer price index — a measure of the price movements of goods from a seller’s perspective — surged 3.87 percent, as prices for agricultural products, electronics and chemical products increase, although base metal product prices dropped, the agency said.
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