Singapore’s core inflation rose from 2.0% in July to 2.2% in August 2026, while overall inflation edged up from 2.2% to 2.3%. MAS expects higher energy and imported costs to keep inflation elevated into early 2027, before it eases more noticeably in the second half of that year.[1][3]
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Create a landscape editorial hero image for this Studio Global article: How did Singapore’s core and overall inflation change in August 2026 compared with July, which price categories drove those changes, and how. Article summary: Singapore’s **core inflation rose from 2.0% in July to 2.2% in August 2026**, while **overall inflation rose from 2.2% to 2.3%**, both measured year on year. The clearest identified drivers of the core increase were fast. Topic tags: general, general web. Style: premium digital editorial illustration, source-backed research mood, clean composition, high detail, modern web publication hero. Use reference image context only for broad subject, composition, and topical grounding; do not copy the exact image. Avoid: logos, brand marks, copyrighted characters, real person likenesses, fake screenshots, UI text, readable text, watermarks, charts with fake numbers, clic
Singapore’s inflation picked up in August 2026, but the two main measures moved by different amounts. Core inflation rose by 0.2 percentage points from July, while overall inflation rose by 0.1 percentage points as lower private-transport inflation partly offset broader price pressures.4
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MAS core inflation rose to 2.2% year on year, from 2.0% in July. MAS and the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) attributed the increase to faster inflation in services, retail and other goods, and food. Core prices also rose 0.3% from July to August.4
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CPI-All Items inflation rose to 2.3% year on year, from 2.2%. The rise in core inflation more than offset lower private-transport inflation. On a month-on-month basis, the overall index increased 0.6% in August.4
6 The core measure excludes accommodation and private transport, both of which are included in CPI-All Items.
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MAS expects higher energy prices to push up electricity and gas inflation. It also expects imported costs to feed through to food and retail goods prices.1 Earlier in 2026, MAS observed that inflation in point-to-point transport services and non-cooked food had risen alongside surging fuel prices. Those observations help explain the channels through which energy costs can affect consumers, but they are not a breakdown of August’s category-level changes.
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MAS has said higher fuel and imported-goods prices are likely to outweigh moderating domestic cost pressures and the dampening effects of some government subsidies for the next few quarters.3 Its forecast is for both core and overall inflation to average 1.5%–2.5% in 2026, remain elevated into early 2027 and ease more noticeably in the second half of 2027.
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That path depends in part on how global energy prices and imported costs develop. The cited material does not establish a numerical inflation forecast for 2027 or quantify how much each potential pressure could change the outlook.1
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Singapore’s core inflation rose from 2.0% in July to 2.2% in August 2026, while overall inflation edged up from 2.2% to 2.3%.
Singapore’s core inflation rose from 2.0% in July to 2.2% in August 2026, while overall inflation edged up from 2.2% to 2.3%. MAS expects higher energy and imported costs to keep inflation elevated into early 2027, before it eases more noticeably in the second half of that year.[1][3]