The Singapore Budget Speech: A look back

The Singapore Budget will be announced on Thursday (March 24).

It is the most important day in the Singaporean fiscal calendar, which begins on 1 April of every calendar year and ends on 31 March of the next calendar year.

This year, Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat – Singapore’s eighth since independence in 1965 – will make the presentation, which will cover the revised government revenue and expenditure projections for the current financial year, as well as the planned revenue and expenditures for the coming financial year.

It will also be Heng’s first Budget speech as Finance Minister. The past ministers were Lim Kim San, Goh Keng Swee, Hon Sui Sen, Tony Tan Keng Yam, Richard Hu, Lee Hsien Loong and Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

Like previous Finance Minister Tharman, Heng was the managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country's central bank and financial regulatory authority. The 55-year-old was also a former police officer who entered politics in 2011. He was appointed Education Minister immediately after winning a seat in Tampines GRC.

Experts expect the Budget to focus on helping businesses weather the current economic slowdown.

While there aren’t likely to be any goodies for the common man, Heng’s speech will be closely watched.

Why? Because Heng will outline the government’s stand on productivity, foreign manpower, social assistance and economic restructuring.

Traditionally, important policy changes and plans are also announced on Budget Day. For example, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) — part of broader tax reform aimed at lowering the corporate tax rate from 30 per cent to 27 per cent — was introduced by then Finance Minister Richard Hu in his Budget Speech in 1993.

On 15 February 2007 (Budget Day), then Second Finance Minister Tharman said that the GST rate would be increased to 7 per cent with effect from 1 July 2007.

On Budget Day 2006, Growth Dividends were given out as part of a Progress Package. On 1 May, Singaporeans got their payouts of $200 to $800.

Polling day followed soon after on 6 May that year.

Driving development

The Budget initiatives are geared to drive Singapore's economic development. This has been the main focus since independence.

You could say that it has been successful. In a span of 50 years, the Republic has elevated itself to First World status, going from a nation with per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of $1,734 in 1966 to more than $69,000 in 2013, reported Straits Times.

Singapore’s first Finance Minister Lim Kim San unveiled the Republic’s first budget on 13 December 1965, months after the Republic separated from the Malaysia.

In the maiden Budget speech delivered in Parliament — and splashed in the local papers the following day — Lim called for cooperation between Malaysia and Singapore while focusing on development and job creation for Singaporeans.

"Singapore's separation and the fact that there is no common market with Malaysia does not mean that all economic, cultural and other ties between the two countries should also be severed," Lim was quoted as saying in a Straits Times report.

"One-third of their trade is with us and one-quarter of our trade is with them. These ties have been built up over the last 140 years."

As Singapore entered the 1970s, subsequent Finance Ministers — namely Goh Keng Swee (who held the job from 1967 to 1970) and Hon Sui Sen (Singapore’s economic czar from 1970 to 1983) — fashioned Budgets aimed at raising productivity but to also to boost the manufacturing and tourism sectors.

But if earlier Budgets were specifically tailored to boost Singapore’s prospects as it competed on the world’s stage, recent announcements have also taken a softer approach.

In 2014, the $8 billion Pioneer Generation Package was launched to help Singapore's first generation of pioneers pay for the cost of their health care. There were also subsidies and Medisave top-ups for 450,000 Singaporeans for life.