Budget 2016: Key announcements at a glance

The new Child Development Account (CDA) First Step grant will be introduced for all Singaporean children. Parents will automatically get $3,000 in their child's CDA, which can be used for their children's healthcare and childcare needs. This applies to eligible babies born from March 24, 2016.

The Medisave withdrawal limit for pre-delivery medical expenses will be doubled from $450 to $900.

The Silver Support Scheme that gives quarterly payouts of between $300 and $750 will begin in July. It supports the bottom 20 per cent of senior citizens aged 65 and above, with a smaller degree of support extended to cover up to 30 per cent of seniors. This will benefit more than 140,000 senior citizens and will cost almost $320 million in the first year.

Community Networks for Seniors will be piloted, to help the elderly discover health conditions earlier and to connect healthy seniors stay active and engaged with the community.

The basic monthly cash allowance under the Public Assistance scheme , for those who are permanently unable to work, and have little or no means of income and family support, will be raised by $80 to $870.

Households that qualify for the GST cash voucher will get more money this year, through a "cash special payment" of up to $200 that will be made in November. This will benefit 1.4 million Singaporeans.

Households will also get between one and three months of service and conservancy charges (S&CC) rebates.

The total amount of personal income tax relief an individual can claim will be capped at $80,000. The change will not affect 99 per cent of tax-resident individuals. Instead, a small proportion of people, for whom the 15 personal income tax reliefs taken together may unduly reduce total taxable incomes, will be affected.

A new Our Singapore Fund, with up to $25 million, will be launched by the second half of 2016 to support citizen-led projects.

The Workfare Income Supplement will be simplified and payouts will increase. Mr Heng expects the scheme to benefit some 460,000 Singaporeans.

The qualifying income ceiling will be raised from $1,900 a month, to $2,000. They will also get the payouts every month, instead of getting them quarterly.

Eligible workers will also get bigger payouts, which vary depending on age and income. They can get up to $3,600 a year, compared to $3,500 today. For example, a worker earning $1,000 to $1,600 a month will receive increases in payouts between $100 and $500.

The Special Employment Credits scheme, slated to expire this year, will be extended for three years till 2019 - but with some changes. The scheme, introduced in 2011, allow employers to claim subsidies for the wages of older workers they hire. The eligible age limit will be raised from 50 to 55, and those under 65 will see a lower offset percentage of 3 to 5 per cent. Those 65 and above will continue to get an offset of 8 per cent, with an additional 3 per cent until the re-employment age is raised.

The training component of the Workfare scheme - Workfare Training Support – will be extended to people with disabilities under 35 years old from Jan 1, 2017.

Public sector agencies will also work with SG Enable to provide more job opportunities for these job seekers.

Extending SEC also benefits workers with disabilities as it applies to firms hiring them, but with no age limits. Their employers will continue to receive the SEC of up to 16 per cent of the employee’s wages.

TechSkills Accelerator, a new skills development and job placement hub for the ICT sector, aims to facilitate training opportunities for ICT skills that are in demand.

It will also develop industry-recognised skills standards and certification, and place greater value on certified skills proficiency.

The “Adapt and Grow” initiative helps Singaporeans grow their skills and adapt to changing job demands.

Wage support schemes will be expanded to encourage firms to hire workers who have difficulty finding new jobs.

For retrenched professionals, the Professional Conversion Programmes will cover more sectors. New programmes will be launched in sectors like design and ICT.

The Ministry of Manpower will provide an additional $35 million a year for the re-training of PMETs (professionals, managers, executives and technicians).

A tax rebate for corporate income will be raised from 30 per cent to 50 per cent of tax payable for 2016 and 2017, with a cap of $20,000 in rebates each year.

Under the new SME Working Capital Loan scheme, the Government will help businesses secure loans of up to $300,000 from banks by sharing 50 per cent of the default risk of such loans with banks.

The SEC scheme, slated to expire this year, will be extended for three years till 2019 - but with some changes. The scheme was introduced in 2011 for employers who hire older workers. The eligible age limit will be raised from 50 to 55, and those under 65 will see a lower offset percentage of 3 to 5 per cent. Those 65 and above will continue to get an offset of 8 per cent, with an additional 3 per cent until the re-employment age is raised. The scheme also extends to firms hiring workers with disabilities. To do so, the Government will top up the SEC Fund by $1.1 billion.

This scheme that targets heartland shops will be enhanced. Support for promotional activities and upgrading projects in HDB town centres and neighbourhood centres is expected to cost about $15 million a year.

Levy increases for Work Permit holders in the two sectors will be deferred for a year due to the challenges faced by the sectors. The process sector includes plants in the manufacturing of petroleum, petrochemicals, speciality chemicals and pharmaceutical products. Work Permit levies for the manufacturing sector will remain unchanged this year, as announced at Budget 2015. The Government will proceed with levy increases for services and construction Work Permit holders, as well as S Pass holders in every sector, as announced last year.

A new Automation Support Package will be introduced for a period of three years.

The National Robotics programme, announced last year, will be enhanced.

The new innovation district in Jurong West is envisioned as the industrial park of the future. It will bring together researchers, students, innovators and businesses to develop products and services of the future. The first phase of the project is expected to be completed by around 2020.

Up to $4 billion under the Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2020 Plan will be directed to industry-research collaboration. The Government will provide a top-up of $1.5 billion to the National Research Fund in 2016 to support these initiatives.

SG-Innovate, a new initiative to promote start-ups, will match budding entrepreneurs with mentors, introduce them to venture capital firms, help them to access talent in research institutes, and open up new markets.

IE Singapore is expected to support 35,000 to 40,000 companies to expand to markets overseas this year, up from 34,000 in 2015.

The Double Tax Deduction for Internationalisation scheme will be extended.

A range of tax and financial incentives were expanded, including the SME Mezzanine Growth Fund and the Merger & Acquisition allowance. The Mezzanine Growth Fund, an alternative financing option for SMEs, will grow from $100 million to $150 million. The cap of the M&A allowance will double, from $20 million to $40 million per year of assessment.

A new portal will be launched by the last quarter of 2016, which will bring together schemes from different agencies, and help companies identify which grants and schemes are relevant to them.

A step up from the TradeNet and TradeXchange systems, the new national trade platform will be a one-stop trade information management system meant for the logistics and trade finance sectors.

New KidStart initiative to be piloted for children in their first six years. This is targeted at a small group of parents who need more support to give their children a good start in life. About 1,000 children are expected to benefit from the scheme, which is expected to cost more than $20 million.

Under a new National Outdoor Adventure Education Masterplan, a new Outward Bound Singapore campus will be built on Coney Island. This is expected to be ready around 2020 and cost about $250 million.