The nation's consumer price index, an inflationary benchmark, rose 4.8 percent year-on-year last month, driven mainly by higher food prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
Growth last month was slower compared with the annual 5.33 percent increase in October, the highest single-month growth in nearly 13 years, DGBAS tallies showed.
But the 4.8 percent increase last month still represented the highest monthly growth since September 1996, the data showed.
The DGBAS attributed the monthly increase last month mainly to a 12.8 percent year-on-year rise in food prices, among the seven sub-indices of CPI measured.
"The increase in food prices is a problem that's happening worldwide," Wu Chao-ming (
"China's food prices increased 11.3 percent from January to October this year, while Hong Kong and the US' both increased 3.8 percent. Taiwan's 2.4 percent increase from January to November is mild in comparison," he said.
Aside from the increase in food prices, rising oil prices were also a major concern. Oil prices last month surged 15.9 percent from the same month last year.
The price of oil per barrel increased 75.2 percent to US$89 last month, Wu said.
Despite the significant increase in international oil prices, domestic prices for 95-octane unleaded gasoline only saw a 17.2 percent rise to NT$30.7 per liter last month, from NT$26.2 in January, he said.
For the whole year, Wu said the DGBAS expects a 1.7 percent increase in the CPI, higher than the 1.39 percent growth forecast by Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (中經院) on Tuesday.
Core CPI, excluding fresh fruit, vegetables, fish and energy, rose 2.36 percent last month, making it the fifth consecutive month it exceeded 1 percent and the highest since March 1999, the DGBAS said.
Meanwhile, the wholesale price index rose 8.23 percent year-on-year last month -- the highest since September last year, the DGBAS said. Last month's WPI was also up 1.3 percent from October.
For the first 11 months of the year, the WPI rose 6.27 percent from a year earlier, the DGBAS said.
"A rising core CPI and soaring WPI suggest that inflationary pressures will remain high in the coming months," Citigroup economists Cheng Cheng-mount (
The latest CPI reading could raise market expectation of a 25 basis points in interest rate raise by the central bank this month, the economists said.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure
RSS