Singapore said it plans to spend S$11 billion($8.3 billion) to speed up the recovery of households and businesses after the economy suffered its worst year since independence.
Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, delivering the measures Tuesday in his budget speech to Parliament,notedthat the global recovery will be long and uneven across sectors.
The address comes after Singapore’s economy endured its biggest-ever contraction in 2020, with gross domestic product shrinking 5.4%. Growth is expected to rebound to 4%-6% this year, but the outlook remains challenging for some important sectors including aviation, transport and hospitality.
Normally fiscally conservative, the challenges of the pandemic will force the city-state to run an overall budget deficit again, though narrower than the record high of 13.9% of gross domestic product in the 2020 financial year.
That compares with the global average for overall fiscal deficits of 11.8% of GDP in 2020 and 8.5% in 2021, according to International Monetary Fund projections. Before Heng’s remarks, analysts in a Bloomberg survey had projected the deficit would narrow to 4% in the financial year starting April 1.
Officials have signaled for months that they were ready to provide more aid after pledging about S$100 billion last year, particularly for vulnerable sectors.
The narrower deficit expected reflects the impact of earlier tranches of spending, a daily local caseload near zero, a vaccination drive and medium-term concerns about keeping spending more in line with revenue.