SINGAPORE – Hawker centre and market stallholders bearing the brunt of tightened Covid-19 restrictions will receive a one-off cash injection of $500 per stallholder, as part of relief measures announced by the Ministry of Finance on Friday (July 23).
The new Market and Hawker Centre Relief Fund will be made available to all individual cooked food and market stallholders at National Environment Agency (NEA)-managed hawker centres, as well as NEA-appointed operators.
The move comes after eateries were barred from letting patrons dine in from Thursday to Aug 18 in an effort to curb Covid-19 infections.
The cash injection is in addition to ongoing, previously announced subsidies that are meant to take the financial pressure off stallholders, including one month of rental waivers and one month of subsidised fees for table cleaning and centralised dishwashing services.
NEA is expected to announce more details.
Food and beverage (F&B) businesses that have to pivot back to deliveries will also get assistance in the form of subsidised delivery costs under Enterprise Singapore’s (ESG) Food Delivery Booster Package.
The package, which initially ran from May 16 to July 15, will be reintroduced under phase two (heightened alert), from Thursday to Aug 18.
ESG will provide funding for 5 percentage points of the commission cost charged by food delivery platforms, as well as 20 per cent funding of delivery costs for those who use third-party logistics partners.
The latest slew of measures is part of a new support package that will cost the government $1.1 billion.
They also come ahead of the next Parliament sitting on Monday.
