Falling oil price benefits Chinese consumers(2)

In Singapore, prices of oil-related items, including electricity tariffs and gasoline pump prices, fell 2.1 percent in October after edging down 0.6 percent the preceding month.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Monetary Authority of Singapore said food inflation moderated to 2.8 percent from 3 percent in September, as prices of both non-cooked food items and prepared meals rose at a slower pace.

Chinese consumers are also having a pleasant time, with inflation at a near five-year low. The National Bureau of Statistics of China indicates that the consumer price index stayed at 1.6 percent year-on-year in October, the lowest since January 2010.

In India, prices of fruit and vegetables－historically linked to fuel prices for transport and agricultural machinery－have fallen. Prices of oils and fats, another inflation category, have remained unchanged for a few months now.

Despite inflation coming down in the country, from over 10 percent in early 2013 to 6.5 percent, the Reserve Bank of India is keeping interest rates on hold until the next April-June quarter.

"This is the right time to take correct policy measures and improve macro fundamentals of fiscal and current account deficits," says Arun Maira, a former member of the Planning Commission of India. "Current low oil prices will definitely give a boost to the India economy through other means."

Meanwhile, analysts have suggested that the fall in oil prices is a boon for China's monetary policymakers, because they need not worry so much about the ghost of inflation as they reduce interest rates to spur the economy.

On Nov 21, the People's Bank of China slashed benchmark interest rates for the first time in more than two years. It trimmed the benchmark lending rate by 40 basis points to 5.6 percent, while the one year deposit rate was cut by 25 basis points from 3 percent to 2.75 percent.

Julian Evans-Pritchard, a Singapore-based China economist at research consultancy Capital Economics, says that lower oil prices should invigorate economies in general, increasing government revenues.

"Much depends on how a country responds with changes," he says. "However, net importers are likely to benefit more than others, with less input costs and an increase in wages."

China, Japan, India, Singapore and South Korea are the major "energy deficit" countries in the region, according to Capital Economics, importing more oil than they export.

In the first 10 months of this year, China imported 252.6 million tons of crude oil, an increase of 9.2 percent from a year earlier, according to recent Customs data.

The oil price slump is, however, allowing China to spend less while importing more, helping the country save enormously on import bills, as the average price of crude oil imports stood at $769 per metric ton, down 2.4 percent from a year earlier.

China could save around $4.5 billion per month compared to a year ago if the crude oil price stayed at current levels for the rest of the year, predicts financial management and advisory firm Merrill Lynch.

It is said that for every $10-a-barrel fall in crude oil prices, India's annual oil import bill would come down by $16 billion to $17 billion.

"Low oil prices help countries to bring down import bills. And if the import savings are passed on to market, it will in turn keep consumer price inflation low," says Stephen Ching, associate professor at the University of Hong Kong's faculty of business and economics.

In Southeast Asia, Thailand stands to gain most from falling oil prices, due to its dependence on road rather than rail transport and because of oil's high proportion in the country's energy consumption basket, says financial consultancy Morgan Stanley Investment Research.

Thailand is followed by Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines, which are also net oil importers.

Morgan Stanley explained that every 10 percent fall in oil prices would reduce the oil trade deficit by 0.9 percent of GDP in Thailand, 0.3 percent in Indonesia and Singapore, and 0.2 percent in the Philippines.

"The oil price drop would also mean that Malaysia's oil trade surplus would be cut by 0.03 percent of GDP," it said.

But there are losers, too, in this swing in global oil prices. The dip is hitting oil companies severely.

PetroChina Co, the country's top oil and gas producer, posted a 6.2 percent year-on-year fall in third-quarter net profit. China National Offshore Oil Corp posted a 4.6 percent fall in revenue. The Hong Kong listed shares of CNOOC have fallen around 20 percent, while shares in PetroChina have dropped about 15 percent.

Oil and Natural Gas Corp, India's state-run petroleum explorer, reported a 10.2 percent dip in net profit for the September quarter.

However, negative impacts will be limited to oil exploration and extraction companies, a few lending banks, and to some extent governments that rely heavily on taxes from petroleum production.

"Anyway, people will have a happy year ahead," says economist Samman.