The consumer price index (CPI) last month rose 1.21 percent to the highest level in a year, as prices for food, transportation, medical care and miscellaneous items all increased, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
For the whole of last year, inflation grew a mild 0.67 percent, as a strong New Taiwan dollar helped absorb the effects of international oil price hikes, the agency said.
International crude oil prices last year soared 28.6 percent, but oil product prices in Taiwan climbed only 6.98 percent, because the appreciation of the NT dollar helped mitigate the pinch, DGBAS Senior Executive Officer Jasmine Mei (梅家瑗) told a media briefing.
The agency forecast consumer prices would grow 0.96 percent this year, with a 3 percent pay raise for government employees to add 0.08 percentage points to the inflation gauge, Mei said.
Of the seven major consumer product categories, miscellaneous items saw the steepest price gain of 6.39 percent from a year earlier, on the back of more expensive cigarettes, the agency said in a report.
Cigarette prices surged 32.2 percent due to tax hikes introduced in June last year, it added.
Medical and transportation costs rose 1.59 percent and 1.58 percent respectively, as a 4.59 percent hike in co-payment rates in April last year continued to lift year-on-year comparison readings, the report said.
Food costs grew a marginal 0.06 percent as higher fishery, milk and meat prices offset significant declines in fruit costs, it added.
The inflationary measure, after seasonal adjustments, registered a 0.18 percent increase and core CPI, a more reliable tracker of long-term consumer prices, picked up 1.57 percent, the report said.
The figures were comfortably less than the 2 percent alert level that might prompt the central bank to tighten its monetary policy.
The wholesale price index (WPI), a gauge of commercial production costs, last month logged a 0.24 percent increase, easing from a revised 1.57 percent uptick seen in November last year.
Import prices rose 7.27 percent in US dollar terms, while export prices grew 4.33 percent, the report said.
For the whole of last year, WPI picked up 0.9 percent year-on-year, it said.
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