Taiwan's consumer prices rose for a fourth consecutive month in April, driven by higher oil costs and prospects that the central bank will tighten policy next month.

The consumer price index advanced 1.34 percent from a year earlier, after a revised 1.26 percent gain in March, the statistics bureau said Wednesday in Taipei. The median estimate of 14 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News anticipated a 1.53 percent increase. Crude-oil prices have risen more than 50 percent in the past 12 months, boosting transport costs in Taiwan, which imports 99 percent of its energy.

Accelerating inflation may prompt the Central Bank, which has kept its benchmark interest rate at a record-low 1.25 percent since March last year, to tighten policy. Governor Perng Fai-nan said two months ago the bank won't sacrifice price stability for economic growth.

"Higher commodity and energy prices will continue to pass along to retail prices," Wai Ho Leong, a Singapore-based economist at Barclays Plc, said before Wednesday's report. "Strengthening economic growth in the first quarter will allow room for the central bank to shift to a tightening stance." Wai forecasts a 0.125 percentage point rate increase at the next central bank board meeting in June.

Taiwan's economy is rebounding from its deepest recession on record, and "vice economic minister" Lin Sheng-Chung said April 23 the government may raise its full-year gross domestic product forecast from the current 4.72 percent.

Taiwan's industrial production climbed for a seventh consecutive month in March as manufacturing orders rose for computers, mobile phones and television screens. Increased demand for workers cut Taiwan's unemployment rate to 5.64 percent in March, the lowest level in 14 months.

Taiwan airlines will raise fuel surcharges from May 17, the island's aviation regulator said this week. Short-haul levies will increase by $2.50 per trip, and long-haul surcharges will rise by $6.50.

Bloomberg News

(HK Edition 05/06/2010 page4)