Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) grew 2.75 percent year-on-year in September, driven mainly by short-term vegetable price hikes due to Typhoon Hinnamnor, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics (DGBAS) reported Thursday.

Taiwan’s CPI had surged more than 3 percent for five consecutive months from March to July this year, before the CPI growth slowed down to 2.66 percent in August.

Core CPI, which excludes fruit, vegetables and energy, rose by 2.79 percent last month, according to the DGBAS.

Although both September’s CPI and core CPI were higher than August’s 2.66 percent and 2.73 percent, the DGBAS said the inflationary peak was already over despite grave public concern that greater inflation was looming.

Food prices, which account for the largest chunk of CPI, had an annual increase of 5.3 percent in September due to the damage done to agriculture by Typhoon Hinnamnor, which pushed the index up by 1.32 percentage points, DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) said, ascribing nearly half of September’s CPI growth to food price hikes.

Affected by the higher prices of soy beans and paper pulp in the world market, the domestic prices of cooking oil and toilet paper posted the largest increase in 13.5 years and 3 years, respectively, he said.

Tsao forecast that October’s CPI would go down further with vegetable prices stabilizing, noting that the peak of the price hikes had been in the second quarter.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel