Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) last month picked up 2.66 percent from a year earlier, easing from 3.36 percent in July, as all consumption categories reported price hikes, but the pace of increase has slowed down, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
“The inflationary gauge likely has peaked and will not exceed 3 percent again as long as international energy and raw material prices do not rise wildly,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) said.
Still, the CPI would likely stay above the 2 percent alert level this month and beyond, which might prompt the central bank to raise interest rates to tame inflation.
Photo: CNA
The monetary policymaker is due to review its policy stance on Sept. 22.
Food costs, the largest component of the index, advanced 4.86 percent, with egg and meat prices spiking 33.29 percent and 5.77 percent respectively, as suppliers raised prices to reflect raw material cost hikes, the agency said in its monthly report.
Fruit prices jumped 15.04 percent, while the prices of fish and dining out rose 7.35 percent and 6.64 percent respectively, although vegetable prices fell nearly 20 percent, it said.
Bad weather a year earlier had disrupted vegetable supplies, causing prices to rise and setting a high comparison base.
People might feel the pinch of inflation more evidently, as prices of frequently purchased items increased 5.21 percent from a year earlier, Tsao said.
Restaurants and eateries had sought to attract customers with deep discounts in the previous months, but kept their prices steady last month, he said.
The CPI declined from a month earlier and dropped 0.15 percent after seasonal adjustments, affirming that inflationary pressures have stabilized, Tsao said.
Clothing prices rose 3.11 percent as retailers offered fewer discounts and raised price tags, the agency said.
Transportation and communications costs, a major inflation driver this year, remained high amid a 5.59 percent increase in international oil prices, offsetting a 6.63 percent decline in telecommunication charges, it said.
Core CPI, a more reliable long-term price tracker that excludes volatile items, expanded 2.73 percent, faster than the headline data, indicating inflation is not transient, the agency said.
Living costs, such as rent and house repair costs, rose 2.44 percent, while prices of miscellaneous items such as jewelry picked up 1.4 percent, it said.
The wholesale price index (WPI), a measure of commercial production costs, advanced 11.54 percent, decelerating from a 13.11 percent gain in July, it added.
Imports prices swelled 16.78 percent in New Taiwan dollar terms, while export prices increased 11.01 percent as the NT dollar lost value against the greenback amid global capital redeployment, the agency said.
In the first eight months of this year, the CPI grew 3.1 percent, while the WPI expanded 13.88 percent, it said.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
RSS