Singapore Budget 2020 – 5 Takeaways for the Food & Beverage Industry

Singapore announced it’s 2020 budget on Tuesday, 18th Feb 2020, with a focus on

short-term challenges such as the impact of the coronavirus outbreak as well as long-

term economic development.

Here are 5 measures of benefit to the Food & Beverage Industry in Singapore:

1. Jobs support scheme = Employers will receive 8% cash grant for a period of 3

months on the gross monthly wage (capped at $3,600) of each of their

Singaporean / PR employee. The grant will be automatically distributed to the

company’s bank account by July and will be based on the Oct-Dec 2019 CPF

submission (1)

2. Enhanced wage credit scheme = Government will co-fund wage increase for

Singaporean staff by 20% (for wages raised in 2019) and 15% (for wages raised

in 2020). The credit will be distributed to company bank account in the

second half of the year (2)

3. Corporate tax rebate = For financial year 2019 (Year of Assessment

2020), 25% tax rebate will be given (capped at $15,000) on tax payable (3).

4. Rent = National Environment Agency-managed Hawker centers will offer

one-month rental waiver to its tenants while HDB is offering half-month

rental waiver to its commercial tenants. Furthermore, a 15% property tax

rebate has been announced for qualifying commercial properties in Singapore (4). According to the Deputy Prime Minister Mr Heng "I strongly urge landlords

to pass this on to their tenants by reducing rentals".

HINT: You may wish to liaise with your landlord on how do they plan to pass

on the property tax rebate to your company.

5. Working Capital Loan scheme = Enhanced by one year and loan component

doubled to $600,000.

HINT: You may wish to consider this scheme for short term working capital

needs provided that you meet the eligibility criteria which is; Company must

registered and operating in Singapore, Less then $100 million annual sales or

less than 200 group employees and minimum 30% Singaporean/PR

shareholding.

For further details, please check this link

out: https://smeloan.sg/sme-working-capital-loan 

According to Mr. Heng, additional support will be announced for the F&B sector in

due course and dependant on situational changes

1 https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/manpower/singapore-budget-2020-cash-grant-to-offset-local-workers-wages-during-coronavirus

2 https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/manpower/singapore-budget-2020-cash-grant-to-offset-local-workers-wages-during-coronavirus

3 https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/singapore-budget-2020-4-billion-package-to-help-workers-and-businesses-cope-with

4 https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/singapore-budget-2020-10-things-to-know-from-cash-payout-for-sporeans-to-gst-not-going-up