Authorities are awaiting the green light from parliament next week in order to go ahead with the initiative.
CAPE TOWN, April 1 (ANA) – To help low-income countries cope with the Covid-19 pandemic, Singapore plans to provide more than US$20 million in grants to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
According to Channel NewsAsia (CNA), a Singapore-based network, around US$19 million will be drawn from the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) official foreign reserves, with the remainder to come from its share of resources in other IMF accounts.
“It is important to ensure that developing countries also have access to vaccines and also financial support so much so that they’ll be able to move out of this pandemic,” economist at DBS Bank Irvin Seah told CNA.
“If we do not render our support to the developing economies around the world, it could potentially become a drag on the developing countries regardless of how advanced they are in terms of vaccinations,” he said.
Authorities are awaiting the green light from parliament next week in order to go ahead with the initiative.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s central bank is looking for a no-change at its upcoming monetary policy meeting, due to the gradual recovery of the economy and the Covid-19 vaccine roll-out.
Economists suggest while a no-change in policy would mean no immediate impact on the prices of goods and services, that could change in the coming months.
“We do expect consumer confidence to pick up as the vaccination progress continues… also as the economic recovery continues, firms will be able to raise employees’ wages given last year’s pay cuts,” Maybank Kim Eng economist Lee Ju Ye told CNA.
– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Yaron Blecher