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Showing posts from December, 2020

What Singapore’s COVID-19 Response Taught Us About Savings and Reserves

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  "It never rains but it pours" This idiom perfectly describes the COVID-19 situation which hit the world badly at the beginning of the year. Fast forward the months, and we are now in December, a year from the initial outbreak of the novel coronavirus. In March 2020, the World Health Organisation announced COVID-19 as a pandemic, leading to many countries locking down their economies, barring their citizens from leaving their homes other than for essential services, and grinding international travel to a halt. Singapore, the tiny city-state, was not spared. With a tiny domestic market and an economy that is highly dependent on import and export, Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) projects that the economy will be shrinking between 6% to 6.5% this year. Drawing from Past Reserves It is reasonable to say that the economic impact would probably have been much worse, if not for the 4 sets of stimulus packages (“Budgets”) to help businesses and individuals w