The measures introduced at this year’s budget continue to lay the foundation for our city-state to adapt and thrive in today’s environment.
This year’s budget may not seem ground-breaking to many, but it is an evolutionary one that aims to propel Singapore towards being the world’s first Smart Nation.
In his maiden budget statement, Mr Heng Swee Keat stressed that Singaporeans “must work together to muster our resources, to innovate, to scale up and internationalise." To accomplish this, the various schemes unveiled are largely tactical and aim to furnish both organisations and citizens with the skills to marry technology with innovation.
Here are the top focal points for employers and employees.
How do businesses benefit in the short term?
To help businesses weather the immediate economic slowdown, the government has introduced some near-term measures to help companies cope and restructure their business in the interim. These include:
· Corporate Tax Rebates
o Existing Corporate Income Tax (CIT) rebate will be raised from 30% to 50%, with a cap of SGD$20,000 for each Year of Assessment (YA) 2016 and YA2017
· Loan Assistance for SMEs
o The Working Capital Loan scheme will encourage lending to SMEs. With the government co-sharing 50% of the default risk for loans up to SGD$300,000 per SME
How do businesses benefit in the long run?
Humming to a tune of over SGD$4.5 billion, the Industry Transformation Programme will work to determine how best to transform 20 industries – including logistics, tourism, manufacturing and shipping – over the next five to 10 years.
Once the planning phase is complete, tactical actions, split into three tiers, will be implemented to help businesses automate their processes and scale up to perform on an international level.
· Transforming Enterprises
To nurture start-ups and home-grown SMEs, highlights from this tier include the Automation Support Package, which will help offset the sizeable outlay that comes with rolling out or scaling up their businesses. Benefits include a grant of up to 50% of project costs, an additional 100% investment allowance for automation equipment, and improved access to loans under SPRING’s Local Enterprise Finance Scheme (LEFS)
· Transforming Industries
A SGD$450 million dollar fund will support robotics development and deployment across the healthcare, construction, manufacturing and logistics sectors. This will help organisations alleviate their manpower crunch and streamline their processes.
Moreover, the government will be taking a more hands on approach to reach out to enterprises through Trade Associations and Chambers (TACs). A new Local Enterprise and Association Development-Plus (LEAD-Plus) programme will provide wider funding for TACs to attract talent, develop their capabilities, and strengthen their processes and services.
· Transforming Through Innovation
Other initiatives to accelerate long-term innovation include a SGD$1.5 billion top-up to the National Research Fund (NRF) to support the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2020 plan. A major benefit of this fund is that businesses get the flexibility of writing down the cost of acquiring Intellectual Property (IP) over different periods of five, 10 or 15 years.
How do PMETs benefit?
In our 2015 budget recap, we highlighted the many initiatives introduced to assist Singaporeans with employability and lifelong learning. This year, two additional measures – the Adapt & Grow Initiative and TechSkills Accelerator – were announced to further improve citizen employability, and groom more experts in the fields of programming, coding, cyber-security and user experience design.
To get a jump start, employees should start seeking out short or long-term courses with their SkillsFuture credits in order to master their current trade, or get themselves cross-trained. PMETs and jobseekers can also head to our JobsCentral Learning portal to access the wide range of industry-certified pre- and post-graduate courses.
The measures introduced at this year’s budget continue to lay the foundation for our city-state to adapt and thrive in today’s environment. Achieving the Smart Nation status is a whole-of-nation journey that Singapore is embarking on. To succeed, our people, businesses and government will need to work together and tackle the challenges that lay ahead.
