Budget to focus on emerging from Covid-19 crisis stronger
Singapore must boost social compact and build sustainable home: DPM Heng
This year's Budget - named Emerging Stronger Together - will focus on how Singapore can come out of the Covid-19 crisis stronger and forge partnerships to meet the challenges ahead as one people.
This means finding new ways to innovate and transform the economy, said Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat in a Facebook post yesterday ahead of his Budget statement today.
"We must strengthen our social compact and support one another, especially those with greater needs... we must strengthen efforts to tackle climate change and build a sustainable home for generations to come. Importantly, we must continue to be prudent in our spending, and leave a better future for our children," he wrote.
The Government rolled out five Budgets last year, committing close to $100 billion, or 20 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP), in measures to mitigate the impact of Covid-19.
Singapore's economy contracted by 5.4 per cent for the whole of last year, a reversal from the 1.3 per cent growth recorded in 2019. The Ministry of Trade and Industry is maintaining a GDP growth forecast of 4 per cent to 6 per cent this year but expects an uneven outlook across sectors, according to a report released yesterday.
Mr Heng said while Singapore will be ending the financial year with a record Budget deficit, past reserves built up by earlier generations meant it could fund the deficit by opening the "national safe" three times.
"Our fiscal situation will continue to be tight in the coming years," he added.
Last year, the Government obtained President Halimah Yacob's approval to draw up to a total of $52 billion from past reserves, with the country racking up a projected deficit of $74.2 billion - Singapore's biggest since independence in 1965.
In an interview with Bloomberg last November, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said even a balanced Budget would be very hard to achieve as money needed to be spent amid Covid-19 while the economy was still down. The Government is required by the Constitution to run a balanced Budget over each term of office.
Mr Heng said shared values - the desire to build on what has been inherited and pass it on to the next generation - are what bind Singaporeans as a people.
"We can take heart that through this crisis, we have built deeper social reserves - united in purpose, standing in solidarity with one another, and facing difficulties with resilience and fortitude."
This article was first published in The Straits Times
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