SINGAPORE: Singapore’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 1.4 percent in May, compared to the 0.4 percent of CPI-All Items inflation in April, said the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in a joint release on Friday. The inflation growth is attributed to the rise in the cost of housing maintenance and repairs on a year-ago basis due to base effects associated with the disbursement of the S&CC rebates. This caused the cost of accommodation to decline by a smaller 1.5 percent compared with the 6.7 percent fall in April. According to the two authorities, Singapore saw the cost of electricity and gas rise by a faster 19.1 percent in May, compared to the 18.7 percent increase in the preceding month, due to a larger increase in gas tariffs on the back of the recovery in global oil prices over the past several months.
Food inflation went up to 1.5 percent in May from 1.3 percent in April, driven by a larger increase in the prices of non-cooked food items. Meanwhile, the prices of prepared meals rose at a similar pace in both months. Private road transport inflation declined to 6.1 percent in May from 7 percent in April, on account of more moderate increases in car and petrol prices. Services inflation fell to 1.4 percent in May from 1.7 percent in April mainly reflecting a decline in holiday expenses and air fares.
Singapore’s MAS Core Inflation, excluding the cost of accommodation and private road transport, edged down to 1.6 percent from 1.7 percent over the same period, mainly due to lower services inflation. The authorities forecast Singapore’s MAS Core Inflation is expected to average 1 to 2 percent for the whole year of 2017, compared with 0.9 percent in 2016, while CPI-All Items inflation is projected to rise to 0.5 to 1.5 percent from -0.5 percent last year. They attribute the projected pickup in inflation to the positive contribution of energy-related components and the impact of administrative price increases, rather than generalised demand-induced price pressures.
