* Singapore c.bank maintains monetary policy, Q3 GDP soars
* Warns strong growth, export demand may not be sustained
* Echoes other policymakers' concerns about exit strategy
* Sing dollar falls, Westpac says still 2 pct above midpoint
* HSBC sees USD-SGD as hedge against Asian FX long positions
By Nopporn Wong-Anan and Kevin Yao
SINGAPORE, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Singapore's central bank decided against encouraging currency appreciation at a policy review on Monday, saying it lacked faith in the global recovery and feared slower growth in the island's export-dependent economy.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) uses the currency as its main policy tool, and traders had pushed it higher, anticipating the central bank would tolerate more appreciation as the economy rebounded strongly from recession earlier this year.
The central bank kept policy on hold even though gross domestic product grew a seasonally adjusted 14.9 percent in the third quarter compared with the previous three months, beating forecasts as services and manufacturing surged.
The central bank said it did not think the Singaporean economy could sustain that pace of recovery while demand sputters in its Western export markets.
"While prospects for the external economies have improved, final demand in Singapore's key export markets...has yet to recover decisively," the bank said in statement.
Echoing concerns of policymakers from South Korea to the United States, the MAS questioned whether demand would survive if governments withdrew stimulus spending that cushioned the global economy from the financial crisis.
"Household spending, particularly in the U.S., continues to be constrained by the weak labour market, sluggish income growth, and lower housing wealth," it said.
"Against this backdrop, the Singapore economy is likely to settle at a more gradual pace of expansion."
The bank said it left policy unchanged, deciding against exercising any of the options in its tool kit that would have given the rallying Singapore more room to appreciate.
SINGAPORE DOLLAR FALLS
"The statement is littered with cautious remarks," said Robert Prior-Wandesforde, Asia economist at HSBC in Singapore. "We see buying USD-SGD as a useful portfolio hedge for investors who are long Asian currency."
The Singapore dollar fell as far as 1.4010 per U.S. dollar, down nearly 0.4 percent from Friday's close and compared with 1.3950 just before the policy announcement. The currency rose last week as some investors bet on tightening.
The currency has been trading firmer than currencies of its trading partners for weeks. Even on Monday, estimates by Westpac Bank placed the trade-weighted Singapore dollar 2 percent firmer than the mid-point of the MAS policy band.
The MAS, which reviews policy twice-yearly and will publish its next statement in April, manages the Singapore dollar in a secret trade-weighted band against a basket of currencies, instead of setting interest rates.
"On the policy front ... the chances are the central bank is building towards April normalisation," said Wai Ho Leong, economist at Barclays in Singapore.
Singapore's reliance on trade -- exports are twice the value of GDP -- force the central bank to track the fortunes of the global economy more closely than most peers.
In April, it opted for a smaller currency devaluation than the market was expecting, citing optimism that government spending, especially in China, would pull the global economy out of a trough.
It was a prescient decision. World stock markets recovered all their losses of the past year as economies rebounded in Asia and steadied in much of the industrialised world.
The bank's more cautious tone reflected concerns around the world the recovery may run out of steam.
EARLY DAYS
"On monetary policy, this is bang in line with what we have seen from South Korea, from the ECB, from the Federal Reserve, who are acknowledging the recovery but said it is in its early days," said Edward Teather, an economist at UBS.
The Bank of Korea appeared to back away last week from a threat to raise rates to cool the housing market.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Friday that while policymakers were thinking of unwinding stimulus to avoid a surge in inflation, the economy would need support for quite some time.
The Singapore government lifted its forecast for 2009 gross domestic product to a contraction of between 2.5 to 2 percent.
The economy expanded a forecast-beating 0.8 percent in the third quarter from a year ago, returning to growth after three quarters of contraction.
"Singapore's growth figures should raise expectations for a lively Q3 growth outcome in the more open economies of Hong Kong and Malaysia," said Teather of UBS.
The MAS forecast inflation of 1 percent to 2 percent in 2010, from about zero percent this year. (Additional reporting by Harry Suhartono, Kevin Lim and Vidya Ranganathan; Writing by Neil Chatterjee; Editing by Jan Dahinten)