The consumer price index (CPI) last month showed a 1.82 percent rise from a year earlier, the lowest in eight months and below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food costs held relatively stable, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The inflationary gauge is likely to hover below the 2 percent level going forward, in the absence of major abnormal surprises, despite Typhoon Krathon earlier this month and the recent rise in international oil prices, DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) said.
“The crop damage wreacked by Typhoon Krathon is not as serious as that left by typhoons a year earlier,” Tsao said.
Photo: CNA
Food costs last month grew a moderate 3 percent, as fruit prices rose 17.37 percent, but vegetable prices decreased 4.21 percent and egg prices declined 15.49 percent, the DGBAS said.
The core CPI, a more reliable long-term price tracker because it strips out volatile items, increased 1.79 percent, virtually unchanged from one month earlier and affirming a stable consumer price trend, the statistics agency said, adding that the CPI value after seasonal adjustments gained 0.38 percent.
However, the public might still feel the pinch because dining out prices climbed 2.98 percent, rents increased 2.5 percent, and medicine and healthcare prices rose 2.61 percent from a year earlier, Tsai said.
Shelter prices also expanded 2.39 percent, attributable to more expensive home maintenance costs, as well as electricity rate hikes from April onward, while education and entertainment prices added 1.79 percent, DGBAS data showed.
The producer price index (PPI), which measures the price movements of goods from a seller’s perspective, shrank 0.33 percent year-on-year last month, owing to price corrections for international fuel, food and electronic components, the agency said.
In the first nine months of this year, the CPI grew 2.26 percent, while the PPI rose by 1.47 percent from the same period of last year, it said.
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