SINGAPORE (May 26): Singapore is injecting another $33 billion in relief measures to help Singaporeans and local businesses tide through the Covid-19 storm that has panned out to be the republic’s biggest crisis since independence.
Dubbed the Fortitude Budget, the additional measures announced on May 26 will build on measures unveiled earlier in the Unity Budget on Feb 18, the Resilience Budget on Mar 26 and the Solidarity Budget on Apr 6, just the before the circuit-breaker measures kicked in.
Together, the total relief measures doled out by the government to cushion the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak now amounts to $92.9 billion – or some 20% of Singapore’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“This a landmark package and a necessary response for this unprecedented crisis,” Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minster Heng Swee Keat said in his parliamentary speech.
The latest round of measures comes as the government adopts a three-phased approach to ease restrictions, once the circuit breaker ended.
Starting Jun 2, a third of the workforce will resume operations, from the current 17%. However, this translates to a significant number of businesses having to remain shut, during the first phase that is slated to last till the end of June.
The first part of the Fortitude Budget comprises $2.9 billion worth of support to businesses, employees and self-employed persons.
To help businesses retain workers, the government will continue its wage subsidy for all firms that remain shut at phase one, at 75% of gross monthly wages for each Singaporean employee in June, for the first $4,600 of wages for each employee. The subsidy will revert to 25% if these firms reopen before the end of phase one.
Meanwhile, the wage subsidy will continue for an additional month to end in October, from the previously end date of August. This is expected to benefit all of Singapore’s 1.9 million local workers across some 140,000 enterprises.
To ease the load on firms that hire foreign workers on work permits and S-passes, the monthly foreign worker levy waiver will be extended to cover June and July. There will be a full waiver in June and a partial waiver in July.
Meanwhile, employers will also receive a foreign worker levy rebate of $750 for each work permit or S pass holder in June, and $375 in July.
