Helping SMEs' long-term growth

SMALL and medium enterprises (SMEs) seeking short-term measures to relieve upward cost pressures or labour market challenges might have come away disappointed from the Budget 2019 announcement. While no short-term fixes were announced, Budget 2019 pushes on the journey of transformation with a laser focus on three key thrusts: to build deep enterprise capabilities, build deep worker capabilities and encourage strong partnerships within Singapore and across the world.

For SMEs, this means measures to help them build expertise and scale, with a longer-term view.

SMEs comprise a diverse group of companies at various stages of development - from startups, to growth companies with access to finance as a primary concern, to larger enterprises with more complex nee…