Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore can look forward to more funding support from this Sunday.

SPRING Singapore will be increasing its funding support for the capability development programmes for SMEs with effect from April 1, 2012 up from the current 50 per cent to 70 per cent of qualifying costs. This was earlier announced by Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, during his budget speech this year.

These capability development programmes cover areas such as human capital development, technology adoption, innovation, service quality, branding and productivity, amongst others.

To allow SMEs to build up their capabilities and restructure their businesses for sustained growth and competitiveness, SPRING will provide enhanced support of all enterprise-level programmes for the next three years until March 31, 2015.

An additional $200 million has been topped up to the existing budget to boost the funding support. This top-up will see an additional 1,800 SME projects supported.

SPRING Singapore's Chief Executive, Mr Png Cheong Boon said, "We are aware of the current challenges faced by SMEs, such as rising business costs and the tight domestic labour situation. It is thus even more important now for SMEs to restructure their businesses for growth, realign their operations and raise productivity. SPRING will focus our efforts on reaching out to more SMEs and micro-enterprises to ensure that they receive the assistance needed to sustain their growth."

ellenja@sph.com.sg