Singapore yesterday announced S$5.1 billion (US$3.55 billion) in additional economic spending, such as wage support, waiver of levies and one-off payments, to combat a downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is an unprecedented budget for extraordinary times,” Singaporean Minister of Finance Heng Swee Keat (王瑞傑) told parliament just over a week after the city-state unveiled more than US$30 billion in new support measures as it braces for its worst recession.
On Friday, Singapore said it would close schools and most workplaces for a month as part of stricter measures to curb a recent jump in infections. Singapore has reported a total of 1,309 infections and six deaths from the novel coronavirus.
Photo: Reuters
The new measures unveiled in the third budget would increase the total spending on coronavirus relief to S$59.9 billion, or 12 percent of GDP, Heng said.
Singapore would draw an additional S$4 billion from its past reserves to fund the new measures, he said.
“The situation remains highly fluid and uncertain. The government stands ready to provide further support should it become necessary,” Heng said.
Singapore’s overall budget deficit for financial year 2020 is expected to increase to S$44.3 billion, or 8.9 percent of GDP, he said.
Separately, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government is to pledge to take “all steps” encompassing fiscal, monetary and tax policies to battle the deepening fallout from the pandemic in a stimulus package to be approved today, a draft document showed.
Abe has pledged to craft an “unprecedented” stimulus package to respond to the global downturn inflicted by the pandemic, which would exceed the size of one compiled in the wake of the 2009 financial crisis totaling ￥56 trillion (US$514 billion) in size, with fiscal spending of ￥15 trillion.
Neither the size of the package nor the amount of fiscal measures has yet been determined, according to the draft prepared by the government, but in a measure of how seriously the government views the situation, the document refers to the pandemic as the “biggest crisis” the global economy has faced since World War II.
The draft package features direct payments to households and financial backstops to companies, highlighting extensive damage from the virus, which has fueled fears of a recession, while the government looks set to declare a state of emergency.
The spending plan includes subsidies for households with children, cash payouts to small and medium-sized firms to help them continue business operations, and arrangements to allow them to borrow at 0 percent interest and without collateral from private financial institutions.
To fund the package, the government would issue deficit-covering bonds, adding further strain to the industrial world’s heaviest public debt at more than twice the size of its US$5 trillion economy.
Sources told reporters last week that Japan would boost government bond issuance by ￥16 trillion to about ￥145 trillion to be sold in the market this fiscal year, which would mark the first rise in annual bond issuance in four years.
The package draft also aims to boost production of Fujifilm Holding Corp’s Avigan anti-flu drug during this fiscal year so it can be used to treat 2 million people.
After several years flying high as Asia’s best Nvidia Corp proxy, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is increasingly vying with other artificial intelligence (AI) stocks for investor attention. Stock traders are chasing a wider array of beneficiaries as mainstream usage of AI creates demand for hardware beyond the most-advanced chips TSMC makes for Nvidia. Subthemes from the deepening memory crunch to advances in robotics are also luring bids. At the same time, investment caps on single stocks are pushing funds to diversify, while retail investors long familiar with TSMC through its US depositary receipts are being offered a broader set of
UNDER MICROSCOPE: Taiwan detained three people who allegedly conspired to buy servers in Taiwan and export them using fraudulent documentation, prosecutors said Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday urged Super Micro Computer Inc to tighten up on compliance after Taiwan detained three people this week for allegedly making fraudulent declarations about artificial intelligence (AI) servers made by its US partner. The development marked the nation’s first crackdown on semiconductor smuggling, which grew after the US slapped restrictions on exports of high-end chips such as Nvidia AI accelerators to China. Nvidia is “rigorous” in explaining regulations to all of its partners, Huang told reporters after arriving in Taipei. “Ultimately Super Micro has to run their own company,” he said in response to
Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV yesterday said that it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 people in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand from clients. ASML had previously planned to recruit 600 people this year, but that the plan has been adjusted upward, ASML vice president and ASML Taiwan general manager Grace Wang (汪佳慧) told reporters. ASML has a workforce of more than 4,500 in Taiwan, accounting for about 10 percent of its global total, Wang said. This year’s recruitment campaign would focus on adding people in the customer support, manufacturing and supply chain domains to assist ASML
Nvidia Corp yesterday announced that CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) would attend an employee meeting in Taipei tomorrow to celebrate the launch of the company’s Taiwan headquarters project. Huang would attend a gathering at the site of Nvidia’s planned headquarters in Beitou Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區), the company said in a statement. After arriving in Taiwan on Saturday last week, Huang told reporters that he plans to meet with Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), and would attend the groundbreaking ceremony for Nvidia’s Taiwan headquarters tomorrow. Nvidia has not yet applied
RSS