Most economists expect the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will ease policy slightly by slowing the local dollar's pace of appreciation against the currencies of the city-state's main trading partners, amid signs the economy fell into a recession in the third quarter.

The Singapore dollar, the world's 12th most actively traded currency, has gained 5.59 percent against the dollar so far this year, the best performer among 10 Asian currencies tracked by Thomson Reuters.

All 12 economists polled by Reuters as of Thursday have predicted the Singapore economy contracted sequentially during the third quarter, putting the city-state in a technical recession following a 0.7 percent quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted and annualised contraction in April-June.