What kind of additional support do SMEs need from the government?

Five in 10 micro and small businesses are less confident about their 2024 growth prospects.

Grants aside, most small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore (36%) want increased access to technology and innovation sources from the government.

SMEs (35%) also want more subsidised talent acquisition and retention schemes, as well as more industry-specific, tailored training and upskilling programmes, according to a report by Employment Hero.

Some are also looking for a streamlined grants application process (34%), enhanced support for international expansion (33%), as well as rental assistance and infrastructure support (32%).

Micro and small businesses, in particular, are looking for a streamlined grant application process and increased access to technology and innovation resources.

This is likely because micro and small businesses (58%) are less confident about 2024 growth prospects. In the past year, only 47% of micro and small businesses said their company performance was good, a lower percentage compared to medium-sized businesses (76%).

To add, medium-sized businesses have higher grant approval rates than micro and small businesses.

As a comparison, only 40% of micro and small businesses applied and got approval for the Enterprise Development Grant (EDG), whilst 65% of medium businesses received the grant.

The report, however, underscored that this is likely because micro and small enterprises have not applied or are not aware of available grants.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia