S’pore CPI growth falls to 0.3 per cent

SINGAPORE, Dec 24 (Xinhua): Singapore's Consumer Price Index (CPI) grew 0.3 per cent year on year in November, following the 0.7 per cent increase in October, said the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in a joint release on Monday.

The MAS Core Inflation, which excludes the costs of accommodation and private road transport, declined from 1.9 per cent on a year-on-year basis in October to 1.7 per cent in November.

The authorities said the CPI decline was largely due to a sharper fall in private road transport costs, and to a lesser extent, smaller increases in the prices of services, retail items and electricity and gas, which more than offset a slower pace of decline in accommodation costs.

As for the MAS Core Inflation, they attributed the decline to a smaller increases in the costs of services, retail items and electricity and gas.

The MTI and MAS reiterated their forecasts, saying the city-state will see the MAS Core Inflation rise modestly in the months ahead, and come in within the forecast range of 1.5-2 per cent in 2018 and 1.5-2.5 per cent in 2019.

The CPI is projected to grow by about 0.5 per cent in 2018, before rising to 1-2 per cent in 2019, they added.