{"id":49710,"date":"2014-04-13T21:04:27","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T01:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/forex-news\/?p=49710"},"modified":"2014-04-13T21:04:29","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T01:04:29","slug":"singapore-maintains-fx-policy-ready-to-curb-volatility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2014\/04\/13\/singapore-maintains-fx-policy-ready-to-curb-volatility\/","title":{"rendered":"Singapore maintains FX policy, ready to curb volatility"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <a href=\"http:\/\/ift.tt\/1iP0FNb\"><u>CentralBankNews.info<\/u><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp; &nbsp; Singapore&#8217;s central bank maintained its policy stance of a &#8220;modest and gradual appreciation&#8221; of the Singapore dollar to contain domestic and imported inflation and thus ensure price stability, but cautioned that it was ready to &#8220;curb excessive volatility&#8221; in the exchange rate.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &#8220;Barring a significant shock in the external environment, the Singapore economy should expand at a moderate pace over the course of the year,&#8221; said the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), which targets the Singapore dollar against a basket of currencies of key trading partners as a instrument to control inflation.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &#8220;Wage pressures will persist and firms are likely to pass on business costs to consumer prices. Consequently, MAS core inflation is expected to stay elevated,&#8221; MAS added.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; Despite weak growth in the first quarter, MAS said economic activity should stay on a broad upward trajectory for the rest of the year with the economy expanding by 2-4 percent in 2014 and unemployment remaining low. In 2013 the economy grew by 4.1 percent.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; Singapore&#8217;s Gross Domestic Product expanded by only 0.1 percent in the first quarter from the fourth quarter for annual growth of 5.1 percent, down from 5.5 percent in the fourth quarter.<br \/><a name='more'><\/a><br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; MAS attributed modest growth in the first quarter to dampened demand for Singapore&#8217;s exports from bad weather in the U.S. while financial services were hit by the negative sentiment in global financial markets as the Federal Reserve started tapering its asset purchases.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &#8220;In comparison, growth in the domestic-oriented sectors, including construction, remained firm,&#8221; MAS said.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp;The monetary authority was upbeat about the prospects for the global economy, saying the outlook had brightened, with a recovery of the U.S. labour market supporting consumer spending, the euro zone emerging from two years of contraction and a mild turnaround in the global information technology industry buttressing growth in Asia, ex-Japan, even as domestic demand in the Asian region softens and China&#8217;s growth slows.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &#8220;The Singapore economy is expected to grow at a moderate pace &nbsp;in 2014, supported by the cyclical uplift in the industrialized economies,&#8221; MAS said.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp;<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; <\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;border: 0px;color: #333333;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 1.2em;line-height: 1.9em;margin-bottom: 20px;padding: 0px;vertical-align: baseline\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By CentralBankNews.info &nbsp; &nbsp; Singapore&#8217;s central bank maintained its policy stance of a &#8220;modest and gradual appreciation&#8221; of the Singapore dollar to contain domestic and imported inflation and thus ensure price stability, but cautioned that it was ready to &#8220;curb excessive volatility&#8221; in the exchange rate.&nbsp; &nbsp; &#8220;Barring a significant shock in the external environment, &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2014\/04\/13\/singapore-maintains-fx-policy-ready-to-curb-volatility\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Singapore maintains FX policy, ready to curb volatility&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}