SINGAPORE, Oct 14 — Singapore’s central bank left monetary policy unchanged, after easing three times since January last year, even as the economy contracted the most in four years.

Twenty-one of 24 economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted the Monetary Authority of Singapore would stick to its neutral stance of zero appreciation in the currency. 

Gross domestic product declined an annualised 4.1 percent in the third quarter from the previous three months, when it expanded 0.2 percent, the trade ministry said in a separate report.

"We do not envisage a prolonged technical recession next year,” Saktiandi Supaat, head of foreign-exchange research at Malayan Banking Bhd. in Singapore, said before the policy decision. "With core inflation still stable and with some risk of an up move, we still think the current policy remains.”

The Singapore dollar rose 0.3 percent to S$1.3776 (RM5.75) per greenback as of 8:02am local time, after sliding as much as 0.3 percent immediately after the GDP report.

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 centre of a currency band. It doesn’t disclose details on the basket, or the band or the pace of appreciation or depreciation. The MAS has two scheduled policy announcements a year, one in April and the other in October.

In an unscheduled statement in January last year, the central bank said it would seek a slower pace of appreciation for the Singapore dollar against its trading basket. 

It left policy unchanged at the first of its two regular meetings in April last year, before "slightly” reducing the slope of appreciation again in October. It unexpectedly eased its stance six months ago, adopting a policy last used during the 2008 global financial crisis, as economic growth in the Asian financial hub ground to a halt. — Reuters