Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/07/05
By: Pan Tzu-yu and Evelyn Kao 

Taipei, July 5 (CNA) Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) rose 1.31 percent in June from a year earlier, due largely to a spike in tobacco tax and the price of raw materials, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said Thursday.

When fruit, vegetables and energy were excluded, the core CPI for June showed only a 1.3 percent rise year-on-year, said Mei Chia-yuan (梅家瑗), deputy director of the DGBAS Statistics Department.

For the first half of the year, the increase in the core CPI was 1.6 percent, she said, adding that the latest figures indicated stable inflation.

Month-on-month, the CPI rose in June by 0.43 percent, and after seasonal adjustments by 0.28 percent, according to the DGBAS data.    [FULL  STORY]