Finance
Minister Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam has announced that the
Government will introduce a $20.5 billion Resilience Package to
save jobs and help viable companies stay afloat amid the downturn.
The Package consists of five components as follows:
1) Keeping jobs, building for the
future ($5.1 billion)
Jobs
Credit: The Government will introduce a Jobs Credit scheme
to help employers keep their workers by providing every employer
with a cash grant to reduce their costs of employing Singaporean
workers during the crisis. An employer will receive 12% cash grant
of the first $2,500 of the wages of each employee on CPF payroll,
given out in four quarterly payments from March 09.
Enhancing the
Skills Programme for Upgrading and Retraining (SPUR): To
help Professionals, Managers, Engineers and Technicians (PMET) to
retrain, the Government will increase the subsidy rate for PMET
courses from 80% to 90%, same as that for rank and file level
courses. It will also bring under SPUR, selected tertiary courses
at UniSim and the three publicly funded universities.
EDB will
also introduce a $100 million programme where EDB will co-share
manpower, training and related costs with companies, focusing on
engineering and technical jobs, and fund on-the-job training
opportunities for fresh graduates.
WIS
Special Payment: The Government will give lower-wage
workers a temporary additional WIS Special Payment of 50% of their
existing WIS payment to supplement their pay and encourage them to
stay employed. The eligibility criteria will also be relaxed to
allow those with less regular employment to qualify.
Expanded employment
in public service sector by over 18,000 jobs over the next
two years in areas such as schools, healthcare, Home Team and
Mindef, as well.
What do
you think of the above measures to create and retain jobs for
Singaporeans?
2) Stimulating bank
lending
Special
risk-sharing incentive: The Government will extend its
support to a broader segment of the credit market besides the SMEs
and for the first time, share in the risks of trade financing
through a Special Risk-Sharing Incentive which has two components.
The Government will introduce a Bridging Loan Programme (BLP) which
will cater to loans of up to $5 million and increase the
Government’s share of risk from 50% to 80% from 1 February 09. The
Government will also take on a significant part of the risk in
trade financing (risk-share of 75% for qualifying loans), to help
companies to secure loans to fulfil their orders and insurance
against the risks of their buyers defaulting on payments.
What do
you think of the measures to help companies secure financing from
banks?
3) Enhancing business cashflow and
competitiveness ($2.6 billion)
The
Government will introduce various tax concessions and measures to
ease business cashflow and improve competitiveness, as
follows:
Easing business
cashflow
Improving competitiveness and
capabilities for innovation
What do
you think of the measures to enhance business cash flow and
strengthen our competitiveness?
4) Supporting Families ($2.6
billion)
Direct
assistance to households includes :
Targeted
help for vulnerable groups includes:
Support for
Charity Giving and Community includes
What do
you think of the measures to help all households and the
community?
5) Building a home for the future
($4.4 billion)
The
Government will boost investments to make Singapore a lively global
city and the best home for Singaporeans by:
What do
you think of the measures to make Singapore the best home for
Singaporeans?
