Mon, Nov 23, 2009 page12

• Food prices expected to remain stable

  NOT CONCERNED The Animal Industry Department brushed off a media report that breakfast prices would soon increase and said some prices were even falling

  • By Kevin Chen / STAFF REPORTER
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  Rising global oil and commodity prices, coupled with higher domestic fuel prices and speculation of higher dairy prices, are likely to add inflationary pressure, but retailers and government officials said prices should remain stable in Taiwan.

  Their comments came after the Chinese-language United Daily News reported yesterday that breakfast prices would increase next month to reflect the rising costs of tea leaves, cocoa beans, white sugar, coffee beans, orange juice and butter globally.

  Carrefour Taiwan’s (家樂福) public relations manager Dream Lin (林夢紹) said she had not seen signs of price hikes in those items and the company had no plans to raise prices.

  “Usually our suppliers inform us at least a month in advance if they plan to raise product prices because of rising raw material and commodity prices. But we haven’t had any such requests from our suppliers,” Lin said by telephone.

  On market speculation that New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra will soon raise the prices of Anchor-brand butter products to reflect higher oil prices and foreign exchange rates, another hypermarket said there had been no changes.

  “We have heard this rumor, too, but there has been no change in these products on our shelves,” said Tseng Ya-ling (曾雅玲), public relations manager at Far Eastern Geant (愛買).

  Tseng said the company had no information on price changes by suppliers for next year, but declined to speculate on the prospects.

  Consumer prices fell for the ninth consecutive month last month, with the consumer price index (CPI) dropping 1.84 percent year-on-year, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) reported on Nov. 5.

  Consumer prices will likely remain subdued because of weak domestic demand and high unemployment, the DGBAS said at the time.

  Against this backdrop, large retailers are likely to “absorb price changes themselves or utilize their purchasing power to bargain with suppliers,” Tseng said.

  Nonetheless, sustained price hikes would eventually force stores to raise prices, and many suppliers have complained of soaring commodity prices, retailers said.

  On Friday, the price of white sugar for delivery in March edged up to £601 (US$992) a tonne from £593 a week earlier on the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange. The price of cocoa for the same month rallied to US$3,310 a tonne from US$3,117 the previous week on the New York Board of Trade.

  Both are near three-decade highs, Bloomberg data showed.

  The price of orange juice futures for January delivery surged 66 percent this year to US$1.1265 a pound as of Friday on the ICE Futures US market, Bloomberg’s figures showed.

  In an interview with the Central News Agency yesterday, Jack Sheu (許桂森), head of the Council of Agriculture’s Animal Industry Department, brushed off price concerns.

  Sheu said that supply exceeds demand for most of the items mentioned in the newspaper report, meaning that prices would remain stable for the time being. Prices have even been decreasing for some items like eggs, he said.
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