Singapore extends wage subsidies by seven months in new relief pacakge

Singapore’s government has allocated another 8 billion Singapore dollars ($5.8 billion) to support the economy that has come under pressure from the coronavirus pandemic, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat said, CNBC reports.

“The resulting economic impact has been severe,” Heng, who’s also coordinating minister for economic policies,  said in a televised address. He added that “the global economy remains very weak” and any recovery “will depend on how well countries contain the spread of the virus.” 

Many of the support measures announced by the deputy prime minister on Monday are extensions of existing policies. They include:

An extension of wage subsidies by seven months until March 2021. The amount of subsidies that companies can receive depends on the “projected recovery” of different sectors;

An additional 187 million Singapore dollars (US$136.5 million) in relief for the aviation sector;

Cash payouts for unemployed Singaporeans or those who have suffered significant income loss, and low-wage workers.

Meanwhile, new measures announced by Heng include 320 million Singapore dollars in “tourism credits” for Singaporeans to encourage domestic tourism.

Before Monday’s support measures were announced, the Singapore government had already dug into its reserves to fund four fiscal stimulus packages worth close to 100 billion Singapore dollars, or around 20 percent of GDP.-Graphic: CNA