The consumer price index (CPI) last month gained 3.36 percent from a year earlier, driven by drastic food and electricity price hikes, although the overall inflationary reading slowed from one month earlier, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
It is the fifth consecutive month that the annual rise has been above 3 percent, although the gain was down from June as global oil prices dropped below US$100 per barrel amid mounting recession fears.
Food prices, the largest chunk of the index’s composition, had the biggest gain at 7.18 percent as suppliers passed higher costs on to customers, the agency said in its monthly report.
Photo: CNA
Meat prices swelled 31.92 percent year-on-year, while fruit prices spiked 29.47 percent, induced partly by unfavorable weather conditions, said DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘), who last month predicted that the pace of inflation would ease last month, although it remained above 3 percent.
Fishery product prices rose 6.76 percent, while dining costs increased 6.74 percent, the report said.
The cost of living category was the No. 2 inflation driver with a 3.03 percent gain from a year earlier, Taso said, adding that seasonal summer electricity rates and adjustments for heavy users of electricity were the top drivers of the uptick.
Rent, household products and home repair also became more expensive, the report said.
Transportation and communications costs, a principal driver of inflation this year, expanded a modest 2.95 percent after oil product prices, airplane tickets and vehicle prices increased by mid-single-digit percentage points after double-digit gains in the past few months, it said.
Demand for crude oil has weakened as GDP growth in major economies lost significant momentum following aggressive interest rate hikes by major central banks.
Core CPI, a more reliable price tracker because it excludes volatile items, rose 2.73 percent, still well above the 2 percent that the central bank says is acceptable, the report said.
The wholesale price index (WPI), a measure of commercial production costs, increased 13.11 percent, decelerating from a 16.32 percent gain, suggesting that corporations would remain under margin pressure until inventory corrections end, the DGBAS said.
Inflation pressure is more evident for imported goods, which had a 17.42 percent price increase, than for exports, which increased 12.72 percent, it said.
In the first seven months of the year, CPI grew 3.17 percent, while WPI expanded 14.25 percent, it said.
RECOVERED CONFIDENCE: As market rationality returns, Taiwanese stocks that have lagged behind their US peers might soon catch up, Allianz researchers said Local shares last week defied heavy pressure from China’s military drills in waters around Taiwan, and investors this week are expected to pay attention to earnings results from several tech heavyweights as well as the latest economic data on exports and GDP. The TAIEX closed at 15,036.04 points on Friday, posting a weekly increase of 0.24 percent from 15,000.07 on July 29, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Over the same period, the FTSE TWSE Taiwan 50 Index, which comprises Taiwan’s top 50 stocks in terms of market capitalization, closed up 0.93 percent at 11,750.15 points, while the Formosa Stock Index, which measures
Pharmaceutical start-up AcadeMab Biomedical Inc (研生生醫) said it has been developing a COVID-19 antibody drug, an endeavor not being undertaken by many other Taiwanese pharmaceutical firms. The company was spun off from Academia Sinica’s Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology in 2020 and has only 16 employees. It has set its sights on the innovative field of the monoclonal antibody treatment of tumors. The start-up began developing antibody drugs in January, after seeing that COVID-19 vaccines could not effectively protect people from new variants of SARS-CoV-2, AcadeMab Biomedical chief strategy officer Pearl Fong (俸清珠) said in an interview with the Taipei Times
FORECAST EXCEEDED: China’s curbs on some Taiwanese goods are unlikely to affect trade given inter-reliance in the electronics industries, a finance ministry official said Exports last month spiked 14.2 percent to US$43.32 billion, the second-highest increase on record and the 25th consecutive month of gains, driven by global demand for electronics used in high-performance computing and vehicles, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The ministry expects the trend to sustain this month and beyond, although the pace could slow due to inventory corrections for laptops, smartphones and other consumer electronics. “The July results proved stronger than expected despite rising fears over economic uncertainty,” Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) said, adding that a high sales season in the West and stabilized COVID-19 infections in China
Government officials and business representatives yesterday participated in a groundbreaking ceremony at the Nanzih Technology Industrial Park (楠梓科技產業園區) in Kaohsiung, where Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is to construct a 12-inch wafer plant. The 238-hectare park sits on the former site of a naphtha cracking plant owned by state-owned oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油). Thirty hectares of the first phase of development are reserved for TSMC’s planned factory, while the second phase is to be occupied by international semiconductor material and equipment companies, the Executive Yuan said in a statement yesterday. “The park will be connected with Tainan Science Park
RSS