Fin Min Delivers Budget, Narrows Aid For Households Amid High Inf.

Deputy PM and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong is delivering the 2023 Singaporean budget. Link to livestream:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_HxaUlUMTQSingaporean outlet CNA highlights the main points from the budget speech:

• "In the last financial year, the President agreed for Singapore to draw SGD6 billion from its past reserves for emergency COVID-19 public health expenditures. The country now expects to draw a lower amount of SGD3.1 billion.[...] All in all, Singapore is expecting a deficit of SGD2 billion – 0.3 per cent of GDP – for FY2022."
• "Mr Wong says Singapore's economic growth will remain positive but slow at 0.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent this year. Mr Wong warns that a greater-than-expected decline in the US and EU economies could tip the world into recession. If the Ukraine war is prolonged, there might be fresh disruption to global trade."
• "Singapore’s core inflation rate climbed to 5.1 per cent in October last year, and remained steady until December. It averaged 4.1 per cent in 2022, up from 0.9 per cent the previous year. [...] The Government expects Singapore’s headline inflation to remain high, at least for the first half of this year."
• "The current enhancements to the Enterprise Financing Scheme will be extended for another year until Mar 31, 2024. This includes the 70 per cent Government risk-share for trade loans. "I hope this will encourage financial institutions to continue extending credit to viable enterprises," says Mr Wong."
• "Mr Wong says that while the Government is providing comprehensive support last year and this year, it is not fiscally sustainable to rely so heavily on Government support year after year."