Meat prices rose marginally, but dairy prices fell in this UN-FAO tracking. Singapore's retail activity rose +2.2% in March and a sharp deceleration of the February rate. Given they have inflation running at +5.5% and the retail data is nominal, that suggests real retail activity is down -3.3%. The jobless rate dipped to 3.4% and their participation rate is unchanged at 62.6% so there remains plenty of capacity for more improvement. This strong labour market is supporting non-housing consumer credit growth which came in higher in March than expected.

Source: New Zealand Herald May 07, 2023 22:40 UTC