Taiwan's CPI Growth Drops to 0.86% in November

With international crude oil price having dropped to US$65 a barrel to be 5-year low around Dec. 11 to drive consumption, Taiwan's consumer price index (CPI) rose a slight annual 0.86% in November and is very likely to stay below 1% in December, according to Taiwan's  Directorate General of Budget, Accounting & Statistics (DGBAS).

In the same month the core CPI growth, excluding prices of fresh food and energy, stood at 1.4%. Y. T. Tsai, deputy director at Statistics Department of DGBAS, indicates that CPI growth in November was due mainly to the rise of food prices and plummeting international oil prices by about 11% to have suppressed CPI growth by about 0.5 of a percentage point.

The annual growth of the prices of 17 major consumer products hit a nine-month low of 5% in the month, with only the price of pork having risen double-digit versus negative growths for most of the remaining. In addition, dining-out expenditures grew a moderate  4.4%.

Tsai says in the first half of this year the price of spot crude oil averaged around US$105 per barrel but dropped to US$75 in November. As result, Taiwan's CPI rose a slight annual 1.06% in October but shrank to 0.86% in November. (JL)