On a month-on-month basis, the headline consumer price measure declined 0.7%, amid a 2.1% drop each in housing and transport costs.
The MAS, which uses the exchange rate as its main tool, has kept its policy stance unchanged since April 2023. As the GST rate increased by one-percentage-point this year, the central bank said in its latest review in January that it was appropriate to keep the local dollar on an appreciating path to curb domestic cost pressures and also blunt imported inflation as part of its goal to ensure medium-term price stability.
An expected easing of demand-pull price pressures going forward would give the central bank greater scope to loosen policy settings later in the year, Bloomberg Economics’s Tamara Mast Henderson said in a report before the data. The MAS is due to revisit monetary settings in April.
