Coronavirus “very grave” in Singapore but will do all to stabilise economy : PM Lee

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has described the coronavirus outbreak in Singapore as “very grave”, saying that his government will do whatever it takes to stabilise the country's economy even if nobody can tell what lies ahead.

Speaking to reporters after the government unveiled a supplementary budget of 48.4 billion Singapore dollars in Parliament on Thursday to tackle the coronavirus outbreak, Lee assured that he will do everything possible to stabilise the city state’s economy, preserve jobs and help companies stay afloat.

"Whatever it takes to do that, we will do them," Lee said. "We want to see people through this; we are under no illusions that this is the end of the story because nobody can tell what lies ahead," he added.

The city-state has reported 683 virus infections and two deaths, but has won praise for its approach and has so far avoided going into a total lockdown. Lee gave a sense of the fast-changing situation, pointing out that his government had thought the measures contained in the Budget presented on February 18 would buy a few months of time for it to assess the situation and put together a second package.

“But we did not expect within one month, the picture was totally changed, the health picture was totally changed, the economic picture was totally changed,” conceded Lee. "This is why the Government also completely changed its policy response and set aside a further 48.4 billion Singapore dollars to support businesses, workers and families, he said.

It was a Supplementary Budget nearly seven times the initial 6.4 billion Singapore dollars worth of measures in the February Budget to cushion the COVID-19 fallout. The combined 55 billion Singapore dollar budget to combat the coronavirus is intended to see the country until the end of the year. Lee added that Singaporeans must be psychologically prepared for things to worsen in the coming months.

In such a scenario, the government is prepared to tap on the reserves again, he said. Singapore is drawing from national reserves to fund the supplementary budget announced on Thursday. Lee noted that economies around the world have been drastically hit as the flow of goods and people reach a standstill. As an open economy, Singapore is particularly hard hit, especially in industries such as aviation, tourism and hotels, he pointed out.

“It is going to last quite a long time: it is not a V-shaped down dip, it is not a U-shaped dip,” the Strait Times quoted Lee as saying. The number of COVID-19 cases across the globe has skyrocketed to 531,860 and a total of 24,057 people have died so far. At 85,653, the US now has the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world, surpassing China and Italy. Nearly 1300 people have died in the US due to the disease.

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