Monetary Authority of Singapore maintains prevailing rate of appreciation of policy band

Monetary Authority of Singapore, Singapore’s central bank, leaves policy settings unchanged, as expected.

  • will
    maintain the
    prevailing rate of appreciation of the S$NEER
    policy band
  • will be no change to its width and the level
    at which it is
    centred

The MAS says it’ll be increasing the frequency of its meetings and statements, quite the development!

  • Will be shifting to a quarterly monetary policy statement schedule
    from 2024
  • Statements will be
    released in January, April, July, and October
  • MAS continues to
    uphold a medium-term orientation in its policy formulation to secure
    low and stable inflation
  • The next monetary
    policy statement will be released in late January 2024

More:

  • Singapore’s GDP growth is expected to improve gradually over 2024
  • MAS core inflation
    has slowed and is projected to broadly decline over the course of
    2024
  • There are both
    upside and downside risks to inflation
  • Shocks to global
    food and energy prices or domestic labour costs could bring about
    additional inflationary pressures
  • Sharper-than-expected
    downturn in the global economy could induce a general easing of cost
    and price pressures
  • CPI-all items
    inflation is projected to average between 3.0–4.0% in 2024
  • In 2024, mas core
    inflation should be on a broad moderating trend
  • All items inflation
    forecast to pick up slightly in the remaining months of 2023
  • For 2023 as a whole,
    CPI-all items inflation should average around 5%, down from 6.1% the
    year before

SG data released:

Q3 GDP +0.7% y/y (expected +0.4%) – flash estimate

  • +1.0% qtr/qtr
    seasonally adjusted rate – flash estimate
  • +1.0% qtr/qtr
    seasonally adjusted rate – flash estimate

Background to this, and how MAS policy works is here:

SGD little changed:

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com. Source