Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are often bewildered by a plethora of assistance schemes when they go to the government for help.
Participants at the SME forum, hosted by DP Information Network and Spring Singapore (the government agency largely responsible for allocation of grants to promote local enterprises), agreed that the great number of help schemes has been a source of confusion - and panel member Loh Kok Chong, general manager of SMEs and domestic sector at Spring, was not surprised.
'You don't need all of them,' he told the forum. Yet if the government stopped some of the schemes, Mr Loh said, some SMEs would scream murder. The government is offering so many help schemes because it wants to accommodate the diversity within the SME sector, he explained.
