SINGAPORE: Singapore's central bank eased its monetary policy for the first time in three years on Monday, as widely expected.
In a statement, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said it would lower slightly the slope of the Singapore dollar's policy band, while the width and centre of the band would not be changed.
The MAS manages monetary policy through exchange rate settings, rather than interest rates, letting the Singapore dollar rise or fall against the currencies of its main trading partners within an undisclosed band.
Eleven economists polled by Reuters had all expected Singapore would join a global trend toward policy easing as economic uncertainties
Singapore's economy grew less than expected in the third quarter from the previous three months on an annualised basis, but avoided slipping into a technical recession, preliminary data showed on Monday.
Gross domestic product (GDP) rose 0.6% in the July-September quarter from the previous quarter on an anualised and seasonally adjusted basis, the Ministry of Trade and Industry said in a statement, compared with a revised 2.7% contraction the quarter before.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected growth of 1.5%.
The standard technical definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. The last time Singapore entered a recession was in the first quarter of 2009 during the global financial crisis.
Compared with a year earlier, GDP grew 0.1% in the third quarter, slightly below the 0.2% expansion forecast in a Reuters poll and unchanged from the quarter earlier.