How Budget 2024 elevates Singapore's advanced manufacturing cluster

How Budget 2025 shapes Singapore’s future with confidence

Authors

  • EY Global

    Multidisciplinary professional services organization

  • Sandie Wun

    Partner, International Tax and Transaction Services, Ernst & Young Solutions LLP

3 minute read 21 Feb 2025
Related topics
Tax

Singapore Budget 2025 puts driving inclusive, sustainable growth for enterprises and individuals at its heart.

In brief

  • Singapore Budget 2025 aims to foster a stronger enterprise ecosystem and economy for all.
  • It supports initiatives that promote business and workforce transformation to address greater uncertainty driven by global shifts and geopolitical tensions.

 

Singapore Budget 2025 (SG60 Budget), aptly themed “Onward together for a better tomorrow”, reflects the country’s ambition to propel forward into its next lap of inclusive and sustainable economic growth.   

A recent OECD paper on Singapore's budgeting framework — Budgeting in Singapore in 2025 — lauds the government’s steadfast commitment to maintaining fiscal discipline. With the better-than-expected accumulated surpluses from 2021 to 2024, it is from this position of strength that the measures proposed in the SG60 Budget underpin the country’s longer-term priorities for fiscal sustainability.

While acknowledging the unexpected increase in corporate income tax collections for FY 2024 at 4.1% of GDP, Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong cautioned against complacency, especially in light of new global challenges and “dark clouds over the horizon”. He underscored the importance of ensuring that multinational enterprises will continue to find doing business in Singapore attractive, and to that end, Singapore’s businesses and workforce must continue to transform to stay relevant and competitive.

How EY can Help

Building resilience through technology, workforce and sustainability


Building upon the refreshed Smart Nation 2.0 initiative, the Budget announced a new Enterprise Compute Initiative that helps businesses navigate beyond foundational digital adoption and harness artificial intelligence (AI) to potentially improve productivity and decision-making and drive enterprise transformation more effectively. This provides Singapore businesses much-needed access to major cloud service providers and expert consultancy services. The S$150m investment for the Enterprise Compute Initiative, together with the S$1b investment in AI development previously announced in Budget 2024, reinforces Singapore’s purposeful focus to enable local enterprises to start or accelerate their AI adoption journey.

How EY can Help

To encourage companies to restructure and upgrade their workforce for a longer term, a new SkillsFuture Workforce Development Grant will be introduced. With a simplified application process, businesses can more easily access the higher funding support of up to 70% for job redesign activities. The SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit will also be revamped to operate like an “online wallet”. Beyond administrative upgrades, these changes remove hurdles and make it more streamlined for businesses to tap into grants swiftly to offset workforce transformation costs.

 

Since the Singapore Green Plan 2030 was released in 2021, Singapore has made strides in balancing urban growth with maintaining its position as a green oasis. To cope with the industries of the future, access to clean energy is pertinent. A S$5b top up to the Future Energy Fund was announced with the implicit hope of securing clean energy for Singapore businesses and households in a commercially viable manner in the future.

Onward as one 

The Budget not only includes measures for the man on the street —including generous SG60 “angpows” for Singaporeans and the SG60 Baby Gift — but also sets aside S$5b for topping up the Coastal and Flood Protection Fund. This reflects the government’s foresight in its effort to secure the country’s sustainability for the next 75 years.

Amid an increasingly uncertain business environment driven by global shifts and geopolitical tensions, the SG60 Budget renews confidence for Singapore businesses and its people, and that together, we will build a stronger enterprise ecosystem and economy for all. 

Prime Minister and Finance Minister Wong summed it up poetically: “This is what the Singapore story is about...Every generation has carved a path through its challenges and paved the way for the next generation to go even further.”

This article was first featured in The Business Times on 19 February 2025.

Summary

Singapore Budget 2025 reflects the nation’s ambition to continue driving inclusive, sustainable economic growth in an increasingly uncertain business environment. The new Enterprise Compute Initiative helps businesses harness AI for improved productivity, decision-making and enterprise transformation. SkillsFuture initiatives make it easier for businesses to tap into grants swiftly to offset workforce transformation costs. In addition, the S$5b top up to the Future Energy Fund aims to secure clean energy for Singapore businesses and households in a commercially viable manner in the future.

About this article

Authors

  • EY Global
    Multidisciplinary professional services organization
  • Sandie Wun
    Partner, International Tax and Transaction Services, Ernst & Young Solutions LLP
Related topics
Tax

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.