Here's How Asia Policy Makers are Tackling E-Commerce, Inflation

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(Bloomberg) -- An explosion in online shopping in Asia has policy makers scrambling to gauge its effects on their economies. Here's how eight economies across the region are digesting the e-commerce boom via the work of their central bankers and statistics agencies:

Australia
Central bank Governor Philip Lowe says retail deflation is likely to “persist for quite some time” after Amazon Inc. Australia debut in 2017. “If you look at the price index for basically supermarket food, it hasn't moved anywhere for five or six years,” said Lowe (Feb. 8), on retail deflation and Amazon's likely impact Clothing, footwear prices fell 3% last year and furniture declined by similar amount as foreign retailers entered new market segments: Lowe Lowe: Online vendors “shaking up the Australian industry,” forcing other retailers to find efficiency savings; “the process has further to run”

Australia

Central bank Governor Philip Lowe says retail deflation is likely to “persist for quite some time” after Amazon Inc. Australia debut in 2017. “If you look at the price index for basically supermarket food, it hasn't moved anywhere for five or six years,” said Lowe (Feb. 8), on retail deflation and Amazon's likely impact
Clothing, footwear prices fell 3% last year and furniture declined by similar amount as foreign retailers entered new market segments: Lowe
Lowe: Online vendors “shaking up the Australian industry,” forcing other retailers to find efficiency savings; “the process has further to run”

China
Government's consumer prices survey includes online sales, but commerce ministry also is using earnings reports and “big data” to gauge e-commerce impact A unit within the commerce ministry meets with e-commerce businesses and conducts studies with research institutions China e-commerce sales totaled 31 trillion yuan ($4.9 trillion) last year and are growing at about a 30 percent annual rate, according to the commerce ministry

China

Government's consumer prices survey includes online sales, but commerce ministry also is using earnings reports and “big data” to gauge e-commerce impact
A unit within the commerce ministry meets with e-commerce businesses and conducts studies with research institutions
China e-commerce sales totaled 31 trillion yuan ($4.9 trillion) last year and are growing at about a 30 percent annual rate, according to the commerce ministry

India
Statistics Office considering including e-commerce in retail inflation data as early as this year; could herald lower prices in short term: senior government official. “There's loud thinking on including online sales in inflation,” said M.V.S. Ranganadham, statistics ministry director general; “We don't have relevant data flow at the moment. We are looking for it. Now it has become very important.” India's e-commerce made up 1.5% of total sales worth 49 trillion rupees ($752 billion) in fiscal year to March 2017: Crisil Research, arm of Standard and Poor's. E-commerce tipped to grow 2.5 times by 2020 to reach 1.8 trillion rupees, led by online grocery segment: Crisil

India

Statistics Office considering including e-commerce in retail inflation data as early as this year; could herald lower prices in short term: senior government official.
“There's loud thinking on including online sales in inflation,” said M.V.S. Ranganadham, statistics ministry director general; “We don't have relevant data flow at the moment. We are looking for it. Now it has become very important.”
India's e-commerce made up 1.5% of total sales worth 49 trillion rupees ($752 billion) in fiscal year to March 2017: Crisil Research, arm of Standard and Poor's. E-commerce tipped to grow 2.5 times by 2020 to reach 1.8 trillion rupees, led by online grocery segment: Crisil

Japan
Government task force of companies including Visa Inc., Money Forward Inc. is brainstorming how to improve household data that captures some online spending: Taijiro Ako, director of consumer statistics division at Statistics Bureau of Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications “Making better data amid vast changes in the economy isn't only about the number of head counts at our bureau. That requires good statisticians with knowledge and education”: Ako Online purchases also might make a bigger presence in Japan's Consumption Trend Index, an upcoming measure that is meant to better capture personal spending through a bigger sample size and collection of data via mobile app

Japan

Government task force of companies including Visa Inc., Money Forward Inc. is brainstorming how to improve household data that captures some online spending: Taijiro Ako, director of consumer statistics division at Statistics Bureau of Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
“Making better data amid vast changes in the economy isn't only about the number of head counts at our bureau. That requires good statisticians with knowledge and education”: Ako
Online purchases also might make a bigger presence in Japan's Consumption Trend Index, an upcoming measure that is meant to better capture personal spending through a bigger sample size and collection of data via mobile app

Malaysia
Malaysia's statistics department estimates 87% of Malaysians use internet daily; 80% of those users seek information on goods, services “Big data” initiative created to explore online pricing and inflation Statistics department also now has unit dedicated to compiling indicators to measure e-commerce

Philippines
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas sees growing popularity of e-commerce among Filipinos Central bank has joined with Philippine Statistics Authority to use big data to assess e-commerce impact. Central bank's statistics team tracking wholesale and retail trade and price, credit, and payment figures in online transactions, according to e-mailed statement Central bank seeking real-time data to improve on old models; sees e-commerce lowering inflation via ease of doing business versus brick-and-mortars. Bank “hires and encourages staff to be immersed in” big data analytics and data science.

Philippines

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas sees growing popularity of e-commerce among Filipinos
Central bank has joined with Philippine Statistics Authority to use big data to assess e-commerce impact. Central bank's statistics team tracking wholesale and retail trade and price, credit, and payment figures in online transactions, according to e-mailed statement
Central bank seeking real-time data to improve on old models; sees e-commerce lowering inflation via ease of doing business versus brick-and-mortars. Bank “hires and encourages staff to be immersed in” big data analytics and data science.

South Korea
Statistics office more than doubled the number of online products surveyed for its consumer price index to 109 products from December 2016 in order to reflect growth in online retail Bank of Korea has said it will consider reflecting online purchases as it decides on a new inflation target later this year that will be applied from 2019

Thailand
Bank of Thailand working with Ministry of Commerce to inject more online pricing in consumer price index Lower operating costs among online vendors, greater transparency in pricing contributing to downward price pressures, central bank says “This ‘Amazon effect' is well documented in the U.S., but we think they also play a substantial role in keeping inflation low in Thailand as well”: BoT statement

Thailand

Bank of Thailand working with Ministry of Commerce to inject more online pricing in consumer price index
Lower operating costs among online vendors, greater transparency in pricing contributing to downward price pressures, central bank says
“This ‘Amazon effect' is well documented in the U.S., but we think they also play a substantial role in keeping inflation low in Thailand as well”: BoT statement

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Michelle Jamrisko in Singapore at mjamrisko@bloomberg.net, Enda Curran in Hong Kong at ecurran8@bloomberg.net, Toru Fujioka in Tokyo at tfujioka1@bloomberg.net, Michael Heath in Sydney at mheath1@bloomberg.net, Suttinee Yuvejwattana in Bangkok at suttinee1@bloomberg.net, Siegfrid Alegado in Manila at aalegado1@bloomberg.net, Vrishti Beniwal in New Delhi at vbeniwal1@bloomberg.net, Chong Pooi Koon in Kuala Lumpur at pchong17@bloomberg.net, Miao Han in Beijing at mhan22@bloomberg.net, Jiyeun Lee in Seoul at jlee1029@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nasreen Seria at nseria@bloomberg.net, Malcolm Scott, Enda Curran

With assistance from Enda Curran, Michelle Jamrisko, Toru Fujioka, Michael Heath, Suttinee Yuvejwattana, Siegfrid Alegado, Vrishti Beniwal, Chong Pooi Koon, Miao Han, Jiyeun Lee