The consumer price index (CPI) increased to 1.23 percent last month from a year earlier, as food costs picked up in the wake of Typhoon Nepartak and travel became more expensive in the summer, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said yesterday.
The price hikes might continue this month, as Taiwanese families prepare feasts for the Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional festival that falls on Aug. 17 this year, thereby driving food prices higher.
The latest CPI data suggested benign inflation, but food costs advanced faster than other consumer items and cheaper crude oil costs helped subdue price hikes, the agency’s report said.
“Food costs gained 5.54 percent because of continuous elevated temperatures following cold weather that disrupted the normal supply of fruits and vegetables,” agency Deputy Director Tsai Yu-tai (蔡鈺泰) told a news conference.
Typhoon Nepartak, which hit eastern Taiwan last month, made the situation worse, he added.
As a result, fruit prices last month soared 35.5 percent year-on-year, while vegetable prices jumped 16.14 percent, the report said.
Travel costs increased in summer, the high season for overseas as well as domestic travel, as travel agencies and airlines raised charges, the report said.
The price adjustments came even as energy-related prices dropped 6.77 percent, dragging overall transportation and communication costs by 1.26 percent.
Transportation prices have contracted over the past two years, but the pace of decline has become increasingly narrow, Tsai said.
The CPI, after seasonal adjustment, increased 0.2 percent last month, slower than on an annual basis. For the first seven months of this year, the inflationary gauge logged a 1.51 percent increase from a year ago, the report said.
Core CPI — a more reliable indicator of long-term inflation, because it excludes volatile items — increased 0.79 percent, less than the revised 0.81 percent rise in June, lending support to stable consumer prices, the agency’s report said.
A stable CPI would give the central bank room to keep interest rates at low levels to spur economic growth without concerns over inflation or deflation.
The wholesale price index (WPI) — a measure of production costs — last month fell 2.41 percent from a year earlier, a more moderate decrease from a revised 2.77 percent decline in June, as drops in the prices of oil, coal and chemical products outpaced the increase in agricultural products, the report said.
Stripping foreign exchange volatility, export prices last month weakened 4.84 percent from a year earlier, creating less drag on export data.
The Ministry of Finance is to unveil last month’s export data on Monday next week.
For the first seven months of the year, WPI shrank 3.89 percent from a year earlier, the report said.
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