SINGAPORE: Singapore’s key inflation gauge accelerated at a faster-than-expected pace in October suggesting strong economic momentum may be adding to price pressures.
The core inflation rate, which excludes housing and private transportation costs, stood at 1.2% from a year earlier, according to a statement by the Department of Statistics Singapore yesterday.
That’s stronger than the 0.4% in September and the 0.7% median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey.
Core inflation was last this strong in December 2024, when it rose 1.7%.
The overall inflation rate came in at 1.2% last month from a year ago, also higher than the forecast 0.9% gain.
The biggest contributors to the annual price gains in October were clothing and footwear, and healthcare. Recreation prices rose for the first time since a flat outcome in December.
Official estimates project the city-state’s core inflation to average at 0.5% this year as a whole, and come in between 0.5% and 1.5% in 2026.
Yesterday’s data came as figures last week showed Singapore’s economy expanded at a faster-than-expected pace last quarter with the government nearly doubling estimates for 2025 gross domestic product growth to around 4%.
Singapore’s growth in 2025 has largely been anchored in trade-related sectors and advanced manufacturing, particularly semiconductors tied to artificial intelligence (AI) demand and servers, along with transport engineering and biomedical clusters.
The country’s central bank left monetary policy unchanged at its final review of the year in October, given this year’s stable economic performance and tame inflation.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore, the city-state’s body which conducts four policy reviews annually, is expected to deliver its next decision in January. — Bloomberg
