Supporting participating heartland merchants and hawkers under CDC Vouchers Scheme

956. Ms Diana Pang Li Yen: To ask the Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) what objective proximity or density thresholds are used to assess that few or no heartland merchants are found within or near residential areas when onboarding businesses onto the CDC Vouchers Scheme on a case-by-case basis; (b) how many participating merchants are located in malls under this exception; and (c) whether these thresholds will be published to ensure fairness to nearby heartland shops.

1       Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: Mr Speaker, I am answering in my capacity as the Minister charged with the responsibility for the People’s Association. The CDC Vouchers Scheme was first introduced in June 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.  The objectives of the Scheme are to help Singaporean households with daily expenses and to support hawkers and heartland merchants.

2       In 2023, we responded to residents’ requests to further alleviate their expenses by introducing a separate CDC Supermarket Vouchers – for spending at the eight participating supermarkets with over 400 outlets.

3       The separate hawker and heartland merchant category and supermarket category serve to strike a balance between supporting Singaporean households with their daily expenses and supporting hawkers and heartland merchants.

4        In line with the policy intent and in fairness to heartland shops, we focus on onboarding hawkers and merchants in HDB heartlands and merchants in commercial malls are not eligible to be onboarded.  To date, we have onboarded over 24,000 hawkers and heartland merchants.