Daily Briefing: About 14,000 hawkers to get rental fees waived; NEA introduces Deposit Refund Scheme for beverage containers

And logistics startup Moovaz raised an undisclosed series A funding from SC Angels.

From Channel News Asia:

About 14,000 hawkers will get the equivalent of a month’s rental waived, as the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) and the National Environment Agency (NEA) assist hawkers with operating costs during the current COVID-19 situation.

The waiver will apply to all stallholders in the 114 hawker centres managed by NEA or NEA-appointed operators. This includes stallholders both in the cooked food and market section of the hawker centres.

Stallholders will receive a 50% rental waiver this month, 25% in April, and the remaining 25% in May, said Dr Khor.

The NEA will also expand the Hawkers' Productivity Grant (HPG), to allow stallholders to claim 80% of the qualifying cost of their equipment on a reimbursement basis, up to a total of $5,000 within the three year period.

Read more here.

From Channel News Asia: 

The National Environment Agency (NEA) will implement a Deposit Refund Scheme for beverage containers by 2022, announced Senior Minister of State for Environment and Water Resources Amy Khor on Wednesday (Mar 4).

This will be the first phase of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) approach for managing packaging waste, said Khor, speaking in Parliament during the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources’ (MEWR) Committee of Supply debate.

For such schemes, producers usually pay for the system to take back used beverage containers, and consumers get a refund when returning empty containers at designated return points, according to Khor.

NEA will start industry consultations and conduct a request for information for the scheme later this year.

Khor also noted that NEA has been closely working closely with economic agencies to actively engage interested companies in setting up mechanical recycling plants for post-consumer plastic waste.

Read more here.

From e27:

Singapore-based logistics-tech startup Moovaz, has raised an undisclosed sum in Series A funding from Supply Chain Angels (SCAngels), the corporate venture arm of YCH Group, and co-investment partner SGInnovate.

The startup said that they aim to use the funds to transform the global relocation industry with the support from its investors.

“As a leading corporate venture fund in Singapore, SCAngels stages the right conditions so startups can get into an iterative cycle of improvement and disruptive innovation. With their collaboration with SCAngels, they are given an advantage over their competitors in solving traditional challenges such as under-utilisation of capacities and information asymmetry, which have constantly plagued the relocation industry,” said James Ong, Partner of SCAngels and Chief Investment Officer of YCH Group.

Read more here.