S'pore core inflation falls to 0.6% in Feb, lowest since June 2021

Singapore's core inflation declined for the fifth straight month in February after falling sharply in January as most spending categories saw smaller year-on-year price increases.

- Sheila Chiang

Prices also fell for two categories — electricity and gas, and retail and other goods — the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) said in their joint report on March 24.

Economists said inflation in Singapore will continue to ease in the months ahead, with a chance that consumer prices might even drop if the global economy takes a sharp turn downwards.

For February, core inflation, which excludes private transport and accommodation costs to better reflect expenses of households, eased to 0.6 per cent year on year.

This is the lowest since June 2021 when it was 0.6 per cent, and much lower than the 3.6 per cent rate recorded in February 2024. It is also below the 0.7 per cent forecast by economists in a Bloomberg poll.

In January, core inflation slid to 0.8 per cent from 1.7 per cent in December 2024. Starting with January, the consumer price index (CPI) has been rebased to a base year of 2024 from 2019. Rebasing is conducted once every five years to reflect the latest consumption patterns of households.

After considering the weighting changes in the rebased CPI, Maybank economist Brian Lee concluded that the sharp fall in January-February core inflation could not be due to the rebasement.