Taiwan to Mull Over Tariff Cuts as Food Inflation Move

Taiwan is considering temporarily lowering tariffs on imports as one way of dealing with rising prices of wheat, flour and milk powder, the finance ministry said on January 20, 2011.

A ministry tariff committee will meet as early as next week to discuss possible changes in the wake of natural disasters worldwide, including the flooding in Australia.

Food inflation has risen to the top of the agenda for many policymakers worldwide, raising the spectre of the disorder in some countries that accompanied a spike in food prices in 2008.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said earlier this month that global food prices reached their highest levels since it began keeping records in 1990 and that grain prices could climb further due to adverse weather patterns.

A ministry official said that temporarily lowering the tariffs on the three commodities was one option open to the government.

The food price index in Taiwan has picked up in the last two months, rising 3.64 per cent in November and 2.17 per cent in December, after being flat in October and falling in August and September, government figures show.