Daily Briefing: Government to provide $600m in payouts to employers; Trade Minister assures ample supply amidst Malaysia travel ban

And new private home sales skyrocketed 114.3% to 975 units in February.

From ChannelNewsAsia:

Employers in Singapore will receive more than $600m in payouts under the Wage Credit Scheme (WCS) by 31 March, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) said on 17 March.

More than 90,000 employers will receive the payouts, with small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) receiving the bulk of the payouts - about 70% of the total sum disbursed.

Through the WCS payouts in March, the Government will co-fund qualifying wage increases for more than 700,000 Singaporean employees earning a gross monthly wage of up to $4,000.

The March payouts will offset 15% of qualifying wage increases in 2019, 2018 and 2017 for these employees.

In Budget 2020, it was announced that the gross monthly wage ceiling will be raised from $4,000 to $5,000 for qualifying pay increases in 2019 and 2020.

Read more here.

From Bloomberg:

Singapore’s government moved to assure residents it won’t run out of food or basic necessities, after neighboring Malaysia said it would halt travel abroad.

The city-state’s residents “may have to make some adjustments to our choices in the short term,” however the country has “sufficient food supplies for all Singaporeans as long as all of us buy responsibly,” Minister for Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing said in a Facebook post.

Later in the day, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a separate Facebook post Malaysia has assured Singapore that the flow of goods and cargo, including food supplies, between both countries will continue. Both countries appointed senior ministers to coordinate responses to the coronavirus outbreak, Lee said.

The restrictions will hurt Singapore’s economic growth, which is already taking a knock from the virus.

Read more here.

From PropertyGuru:

Despite the COVID-19 outbreak and the Lunar New Year lull, new private home sales in Singapore soared 114.3% to 975 units in February from 455 units over the same period last year.

On a monthly basis, new home sales jumped 57.8% from January’s 620 units.

The M, a new launch in February, accounted for the bulk of new sales volume at 39% (or 380 units). The project sold over 70% during its launch weekend.

Lee Sze Teck, Research Director of Huttons Asia, revealed that the last time such high sales figure was achieved for a CCR project was back “at the peak of the market” in mid-November 2013, when 71% or 468 of the 660-unit DUO Residences was sold in three days.

Incidentally, the integrated development by M+S, a joint venture between Singapore’s Temasek Holdings and Malaysia’s Khazanah Nasional, is also situated in Bugis, near The M.

Read more here.