SINGAPORE, April 14 — Singapore refrained from easing monetary policy further after economic growth last quarter beat analysts’ estimates. The local dollar climbed.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore said today it will “maintain the policy of a modest and gradual appreciation” without adjusting the pace of its currency’s moves. Gross domestic product rose an annualised 1.1 per cent in the three months through March from the previous quarter, the trade ministry said separately. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey was 0.2 per cent.

A faltering growth outlook, coupled with the nation’s longest disinflation streak since the global financial crisis, had put pressure on the monetary authority to add to an unexpected January policy easing. While cheaper crude has contributed to falling consumer prices, officials have said Singapore’s economy stands to benefit on the whole as a net oil importer.

“It’s a reflection that growth is not at risk of falling beneath the government’s forecast,” said Wai Ho Leong, a Singapore-based economist at Barclays Plc. “It’s a recognition that the economy could benefit from lower oil in the second half of the year.”

The Singapore dollar jumped 0.7 per cent to S$1.3616 against the US currency as of 8:39 a.m. local time.

The central bank, which uses the currency rather than interest rates to manage inflation, reduced the pace of the local dollar’s appreciation against those of its trade partners in an unscheduled decision on Jan. 28, after growth sagged in 2014 to its weakest in five years. Eight of 15 economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted the MAS would maintain the overall policy stance today, while the rest forecast it would ease.

Manufacturing shrank

The central bank guides the local dollar against a basket of its counterparts and adjusts the pace of its appreciation or depreciation by changing the slope, width and center of a currency band. It doesn’t disclose details on the basket, or the band or the pace of appreciation or depreciation.

The economy expanded 2.1 per cent in the first quarter from a year earlier, matching the pace in the previous three months, the trade ministry said today. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey was for a 1.7 per cent gain.

Singapore’s manufacturing shrank an annualized 2.3 per cent in the first quarter from the previous three months, compared with a 2.5 per cent contraction in the fourth quarter. Construction expanded 13.8 per cent, while services fell 0.4 per cent.

Today’s data are advance estimates computed largely from figures in the first two months of the quarter and may be revised later, the ministry said. — Bloomberg