THE Singapore government has not had to turn away any applications for its Enterprise Development Grant (EDG) and Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) due to budgetary constraints. 

Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong said this on Monday (Oct 3) as he revealed that, between the 2019 and 2021 financial years, the approval rate for completed applications was 85 per cent for the EDG, and 95 per cent for the PSG.

In all, businesses submitted more than 20,400 EDG applications and over 116,100 PSG applications over the three years.

The EDG, which was announced in 2018’s budget, was meant to help Singapore businesses build capabilities, innovate and internationalise, while the PSG was launched in April 2018 to help businesses enhance their processes with technology.

Gan gave the figures in a written response to Member of Parliament for Holland–Bukit Timah Group Representation Constituency Edward Chia’s parliamentary question on how the grants’ application and approval rates compare to the annual budget set aside for the grants.

In answering Chia, Gan stressed that not only were all valid applications approved, the government had given businesses more support when needed.

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In saying this, he cited the raising of maximum support levels for EDG and PSG to 90 per cent and 80 per cent respectively, up from 70 per cent before Covid-19, to encourage businesses to continue to digitalise, restructure and transform during the pandemic.

Demand for EDG and PSG rose and exceeded pre-pandemic levels as a result, Gan pointed out, as he noted that the government had topped up funding for the two schemes in March and October 2020.

Meanwhile, the minister gave an update of the funds disbursed. 

For PSG, he said the time taken to implement its related solutions tends to be shorter compared to EDG’s, thus close to 80 per cent of the approved projects were completed, with businesses receiving the funds within 13 months.

While he noted that many enterprises that receive the EDG implement transformation projects over a few years, about 80 per cent of such projects have already been completed by now, with businesses receiving the funds within three years, he added.