When asked how else they would like the Government to support their businesses in emerging stronger from the economic downturn, SMEs in Singapore surveyed ranked more grants, more rental relief, and more flexible manpower policies as their top three desired areas of support.

Despite weathering some of the most challenging times ever faced in their entrepreneurial journey, Singapore’s SME community remains undaunted, with three-quarters of SME owners saying that they continue to be optimistic and determined to face the road ahead.

However, in a sign of creeping fatigue, close to one in five SMEs in Singapore indicated that they were exhausted from dealing with the economic fallout of COVID-19. These sentiments were reflected in the DBS SME Pulse Check Survey which the bank conducted in early October, after the Monetary Authority of Singapore announced Extended Credit Relief Support Measures for SMEs to partially defer the principal repayment of secured loans and Enterprise Singapore loans.

Three Industry Sectors Most Acutely Affected

The survey recorded the findings of close to 250 SMEs in three industry sectors most acutely affected by COVID-19 – retail; food and beverage (F&B); and building and construction (B&C).

Despite being in the most severely affected industries, seven in ten respondents indicated that they were confident of meeting their repayment obligations for Government-backed loans in 2021 without impacting their current business operations.

Resourceful and Resilient

To meet their debt obligations, close to 30 percent of SMEs surveyed were willing to sacrifice their expansion plans and scale down their business operations to make their repayments. Only 3 percent flagged that they were not confident of meeting their loan repayments in 2021 and may have to wind down their businesses.

«I never cease to be inspired by how resourceful and resilient our SMEs are, and how they are able to turn even the most difficult circumstances into new opportunities. Our survey shows that while SMEs are wounded, they are certainly not out for the count. In fact, many SMEs are quietly preparing for a rebound and even those in the hardest-hit sectors have been busy reinventing themselves and transforming their business models,» Joyce Tee, Group Head of SME Banking at DBS, said.

Trusted Partner

«However, the road ahead remains bumpy, and DBS will continue to be a trusted partner to our SMEs and extend the support needed to emerge from this crisis stronger together,» she added.

When asked about the Government support measures SMEs found most helpful in tiding them through to today, responses varied across the three sectors surveyed. SMEs in the retail sector favored the Jobs Support Scheme (44 percent of respondents, compared to 28 percent for F&B and 26 percent for B&C), while SMEs in the F&B and B&C sectors equally favored working capital support at 43 percent each (compared to retail at 36 percent). The Jobs Growth Incentive was uniformly found to be least helpful, garnering only 1 percent of responses.

More Grants

However, a significant proportion of SMEs in the B&C sector indicated foreign worker levy rebates and the waiver of foreign worker levies as their most helpful support scheme (22 percent of respondents, compared to 1 percent for retail and 3 percent for F&B). At the same time, a significant proportion of SMEs in the F&B sector indicated rental relief as their top support measure (19 percent of respondents, compared to 7 percent for retail and 1 percent for B&C).

When asked how else they would like the Government to support their businesses in emerging stronger from the economic downturn, SMEs surveyed ranked more grants, more rental relief, and more flexible manpower policies as their top three desired areas of support.