The consumer price index (CPI) last month picked up a fractional 0.59 percent from a year earlier as food, recreation and healthcare grew slightly more expensive, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The latest reading was higher than the revised 0.38 percent increase in October, but represented a 0.09 percent retreat after factoring in seasonal adjustments, the agency said.
Overall consumer prices remained stable last month, DGBAS Senior Executive Officer Chiou Shwu-chwen (邱淑純) told a media briefing in Taipei.
Food costs, which account for 25 percent of the weighting, rose 1.86 percent from the year-ago level, driven by more expensive fruits and vegetables, the agency said in a report.
Vegetable and fruit prices gained 9.65 percent and 7.2 percent respectively, DGBAS data showed.
Education and recreation prices climbed 1.22 percent after travel agencies raised group tour charges for domestic and international trips, DGBAS said.
Medical and healthcare costs grew 1.07 percent due to upward adjustments of registration and insurance copayment fees by hospitals, the agency said.
Prices for miscellaneous items also advanced 1 percent, as gold and jewelry became modestly pricier, it said.
Bucking the trend, transportation and communications costs fell 2.14 percent, dragged by cheaper oil products and telecommunications services, the agency said.
Core CPI, a more reliable monitor of consumer price movements as it excludes volatile items, added 0.55 percent, lending support to benign inflation, it said.
Falling oil and raw material prices weighed on the wholesale price index (WPI), a measure of production costs, and squeezed profit for companies in related sectors, it added.
“Uncertainty remains high as the [US-China] trade conflict drags on,” Chiou said.
Soft demand has pushed the WPI into contraction territory for seven straight months, with price corrections in exports and imports for an entire year, she said.
Export prices declined 4.64 percent in US dollar terms, while import prices dropped 3.98 percent, the data showed, unfavorable for export statistics to be released by the Ministry of Finance on Monday next week.
The price retreat is particularly evident for mineral, plastic and chemical products, DGBAS said.
In the first 11 months of this year, the CPI edged up 0.51 percent, while the WPI shrank 2.14 percent, it said.
The agency shrugged off concerns over deflation, saying that wholesale prices are indicative of retail prices in the next two quarters.
“We do not see such pressure on the horizon,” Chiou said.
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