Signage for the Monetary Authority of Singapore is displayed outside the central bank’s headquarters in Singapore, on October 22, 2019. Singapore’s central bank tightened its monetary policy on Thursday, saying the widely forecast move will slow the inflation momentum.
Ore Huiying | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Singapore’s consumer price index grew 0.9% year on year in February, marking its slowest growth in four years, the Department of Statistics said in a release on Monday.
The figure was in line with expectations by economists polled by Reuters, and lower than January’s figure of 1.2%.
Core inflation, which strips out prices of accommodation and private transport, came in at 0.6%, lower than the 0.8% seen in January and the 0.7% expected by the Reuters poll.
Inflation in Singapore has largely been on a downward trend, leading the country’s monetary authority to loosen its monetary policy for the first time since 2020 in January, citing a faster than expected decline in inflation and warning about a growth slowdown.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore forecast headline inflation to average 1.5%–2.5% in 2025, compared to 2.4% in 2024.
MAS also downgraded its forecasts for the core inflation rate in January — which strips out prices of accommodation and private transport — to an average of 1%–2% in 2025, lower than the 1.5%–2.5% projected in its October 2024 monetary policy release.
Singapore’s GDP growth is projected to grow at 1%-3% over 2025, slower than the 4.4% seen in 2024.