SINGAPORE, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Singapore's Consumer Price Index (CPI) grew 0.8 percent year on year in April, following 0.6 percent increase in March, said the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in a joint release on Thursday.
The authorities attribute the higher inflation to a pickup in private road transport costs in April.
Meanwhile, the MAS Core Inflation, which excludes the costs of accommodation and private road transport, further eased from 1.4 percent in the previous month to 1.3 percent this April on a year-on-year basis, as a fall in the cost of electricity and gas and lower food inflation more than offset higher services inflation, said the authorities.
The authorities predict in the release that an acceleration in inflationary pressures on Singapore is unlikely against the backdrop of slower GDP growth, uncertainties in the global economy, as well as the continuing restraining effects of MAS' monetary policy tightening in 2018.
MAS Core Inflation is expected to come in near the mid-point of the forecast range of 1-2 percent in 2019, while Singapore's CPI inflation is expected to average 0.5-1.5 percent, according to the joint release.
Selena Ling, Head of Treasury Research & Strategy, OCBC Bank, said that the bank sees some upside risks to headline CPI prints for the remainder of 2019, but this is unlikely to tilt MAS policy bias in the interim as core inflation is still easing.
"Given that crude oil prices had collapsed from around 80-85 U.S. dollars per barrel for WTI and Brent in October 2018 to around 43-50 dollars per barrel by late December last year, this would translate into double-digit year-on-year increases for oil-related items even if they hold around current levels of 61-70 dollars per barrel," she said.
