Taiwan's Dec. CPI Growth Hits 10-month Low
2015/01/26 | By Ken LiuTaiwan's consumer price indices (CPI) of 370 commodities inched up only 0.61% in December from the same month of 2013, the lowest growth rate in 10 months, mostly due to plummeting fuel prices, according to the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics (DGBAS) of the executive ministry.
DGBAS' statistics show the island's fuel and lubricant prices slumped 21.07% year-on-year in December, the steepest drop in 65 months, moderating the impact of the 4.34%, 11.56%, 9.27% and 4.48% increases in food, vegetable, meat prices, and dining-out expenditures, respectively.
The increase in dining-out expenditures marked a sixth-month 4-percent-plus trend.
DGBAS officials forecast the island's inflation rate to stay sub-1 percent throughout 2015 mostly due to plummeting crude oil prices although the depreciating NT-dollar makes greenback-priced imports more costly in Taiwan.
Compared to a month earlier, Taiwan's CPI in December slumped 0.36% primarily due to the 9.40% and 2.93% drops in fuel and lubricant prices and garment prices, respectively. Water, electricity and propane prices went down 1.45% whereas vegetable prices rose 4.11% month on month in December.
DGBAS officials say the prices of 17 essential consumer staples, including milk powder, pork, and flour, rose annually 4.55% in December, a 10-month low, although pork price surged once in 2014.
Throughout 2014, Taiwan's CPI rose 1.20%, slightly lower than South Korea's 1.3% but marginally higher than Singapore's 1.1%, according to DGBAS, which attributes such increase mostly to the surge in meat price and dining-out cost, both of which have stabilized.
In annual term, DGBAS officials estimate each household in Taiwan spent an additional NT$8,640 (US$270) in 2014 with median NT$720,000 (US$22,500) expenditure yearly, with dining-out costs rising NT$2,610 (US$81.56) and outlay on commuting and communication dropping NT$1,261 (US$39.40).
The directorate general's statistics show that low-income families are much more susceptible to surges in food prices than high-income families since food accounts for 30% of their income versus 20% of high-income families. For instance, in 2014, some 20% of the island's lowest-income families suffered 1.54% increase in CPI, compared with 1.06% increase for the top-20% high-income households.
DGBAS officials believe the continuing drop in crude oil prices to moderate the impact of the depreciating NT-dollar, which boosts prices of the island's commodity imports, to likely confine CPI increase for 2015 under 1%. An additional 0.08% in CPI decrease will come this year from Taiwan Power Co.'s planned NT$800 (US$25) cut in electricity bill for each customer.
(KL)
CPI Growth in Major Asian Nations in Recent Years
unit:%
|
| Taiwan
| Japan
| South Korea
| Singapore
| China
|
| 2011
| 1.42
| -0.3
| 4.0
| 5.3
| 5.4
|
| 2012
| 1.93
| 0.0
| 2.2
| 4.5
| 2.7
|
| 2013
| 0.79
| 0.4
| 1.3
| 2.4
| 2.6
|
| 2014
| 1.20
| 2.8
| 1.3
| 1.1
| 2.0
|