Heng Swee Keat

This second supplementary budget, announced less than a fortnight after the massive $48.4 billion “shock and awe” budget on March 26, was deemed necessary because of how rapidly the Covid-19 outbreak was evolving.

"I expect firms to make use of this Jobs Support Scheme support to continue paying your workers and refrain from putting workers on no-pay leave during this period, or worse, retrenching them," Heng said.

Some 1.3 million workers could go into “cold storage” as Singapore goes on a month-long circuit breaker.

DPM Heng says the government's $48.4 billion secondary package "cannot prevent an economic recession as the external health and economic situation will evolve beyond our control”.

Tourism-related industries have had a “difficult time”, says Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat.

Singapore will do all it can to help SIA and preserve the country’s status as an aviation hub, says DPM Heng Swee Keat.

As the coronavirus outbreaks worsens, the government will now raise its co-funding of wages for local workers to 25%, with additional support given to the sectors that have been hit the hardest.

Additional help for businesses under the Covid-19 Resilience Budget

“It is important not to have excessive expectations or merely focus on the headline numbers," says Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Heng Swee Keat.

“With our declining local labour force growth, foreign workers are a necessary complement, but we must calibrate the inflow carefully, in a way that creates opportunities for Singaporeans," says DPM Heng. #budget2020