Taipei, Jan. 5 (CNA) Taiwan was sitting on record-high foreign exchange reserves in December, with a whopping US$348.19 billion as of Dec. 31, up US$1 billion from the previous month, the Taipei-based Central Bank of the Republic of China reported Tuesday.

The bank attributed the increase of forex reserve growth last month mainly to returns from foreign exchange reserve management.

The amount of reserves Taiwan held ranked the country as the world’s fourth-largest forex holder for the month, after China, Japan and Russia, the bank said.

Meanwhile, the country’s consumer price index (CPI) declined 0.87 percent year-on-year in 2009, while the wholesale price index (WPI) dropped 8.74 percent, both representing the steepest falls since CPI and WPI records began, according to the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).

The CPI stood at 104.61 in December, marking a year-on-year decline of 0.21 percent, DGBAS officials said.

They attributed the decline mainly to slipping fruit and vegetable prices as a result of glut, and to flagging flight ticket sales due to the influence of H1N1 flu.

The DGBAS officials forecast that both the CPI and WPI will grow instead of fall this year, thanks to the rebounding global and domestic economies.

They forecast that the CPI will increase in 2010 by a mild 0.92 percent. (By Kao Chao-fen, Lin Shu-yuan and Deborah Kuo)

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