Quick takes: Singapore Budget 2021

DEPUTY Prime Minister and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat delivered Budget 2021 in Parliament on Tuesday afternoon. The "Emerging Stronger Together" Budget is aimed at helping businesses and workers adapt, innovate and grow in a post-Covid-19 environment.

Here are some quick takes from analysts on this year's budget:

On capital tools to co-fund the transformation of businesses

Ng Li Lian, HSBC Singapore's head of business banking

"The message is loud and clear: SMEs must be ready to capture new opportunities. Transformation is key, but is costly and could come in many forms - digitalisation, investing in R&D, transforming processes to be more sustainable, pivoting to different sales channels. The government's support in providing grants and risk sharing the capital is a boost to both businesses and capital providers such as financial institutions."

On Goods and Services Tax (GST) for low-value imported goods

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Eu Chin Sien, BDO Singapore's executive director, goods and services tax

"While monitoring economic recovery to implement the timing of GST hike, announcing the imposition of GST on low-value imported goods via air or post from Jan 1, 2023 gives Singaporeans more time to react, and at the same time, provides comfort that GST revenue will not be raised solely from a rate hike that will hit the public at large when it takes effect anytime between 2022 to 2025."

"With the significant increase in cross-border e-commerce transactions, lowering the threshold for low-value imported goods is inevitable to ensure tax neutrality. The extension of import relief for low-value imported goods till 2023 gives affected businesses such as freight forwarding and postal companies a head start to enhance its system to manage higher volume of imported goods to be taxed into Singapore."

On electric vehicles adoption measures

Satya Ramamurthy, KPMG's head of infrastructure, government & healthcare in Singapore

"We welcome the changes in the tax and duty regimes which will enable Singaporeans to make a decisive switch to electric vehicles (EVs). However, the S$30 million support for EV-related initiatives over the next five years needs to be significantly enhanced to enable orderly development of charging infrastructure to meet the ambitious 60k target by 2030."

On tapping Asean's potential

Desmond Sim, CBRE's head of research for South-east Asia

"The Budget reinforces the importance of strong connectivity in the global and regional supply chains, which will enable businesses to tap regional industry clusters and partnerships, and ride on the rising demand in South-east Asia. Opportunities lie ahead for Singapore's manufacturing sector, as the government continues to push Singapore as a regional aviation and distribution hub."

On the need for companies to invest in digitalisation

Andy Lee, Cisco's managing director for Singapore

"To enhance long-term business resilience and unlock new opportunities for sustainable growth in Singapore, it is critical to build on the strong momentum and focus on upgrading the underlying digital infrastructure in the nation to enable the continued digitisation of key industries and public services. In particular, investments towards supporting the digitalisation of the small-to-medium business sector are still much needed."