Chart of the Day: Singapore inflation forecast edges down to 2.2%

Thanks to drop in food prices.

According to Nomura, as private road transportation costs are easing, they expect sustained weak global commodity prices to exert downward pressure on both headline and core CPI.

Falling food and energy costs (which constitute 41.2% of the CPI basket) should reduce headline CPI inflation to 2.2% in 2013 versus our base case of 2.8%.

Here's more from Nomura:

Core inflation (which excludes private transportation and accommodation costs) will likely ease at a faster rate in H2 due to a decline in import prices.

With risks to GDP growth skewed to the downside and a fairly dovish statement from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) at its April meeting, a further easing in both headline and core inflation would give the central bank more scope to ease at its October meeting, in our view.