Ask most Singapore SME owners about transformation funding and they’ll name the EDG — the Enterprise Development Grant. It’s the well-known one. But there’s a second grant that often fits an AI or automation project better, and far fewer owners have heard of it: the Company Training Committee (CTC) Grant, run by NTUC’s e2i.
It isn’t a like-for-like swap. The CTC grant is built around a different idea, and for the right business it’s the more generous and more sensible route. Here’s what it is, how it stacks up against the EDG, what makes it stand out, and — most importantly — which kind of SME it actually suits. (We’re an AI consultancy Singapore SMEs work with, not a grants office, so treat this as a practical map and confirm the live details with e2i before you bank on anything.)
What the CTC grant actually is
The CTC grant co-funds business transformation projects that also improve outcomes for your workers. That dual purpose is the whole point. It’s managed by NTUC’s e2i, and it supports up to 70% of qualifying costs per project.
The catch — and the feature — is in the conditions. To apply, you form a Company Training Committee: a small group of management and employee representatives, set up with your union if you’re unionised, or directly with e2i if you’re not. Your project then has to show two things at once: a genuine business improvement (productivity, new capability, automation) and a concrete benefit to your local staff — a wage increase, a redesigned role, a career development plan, or a skills allowance. The funding is only disbursed once you’ve actually delivered the worker outcomes you committed to.
In short: it’s a transformation grant that refuses to let you treat your people as an afterthought.
How it differs from the EDG
Both grants co-fund transformation, but they’re built on different philosophies. The simplest comparison:
| EDG (Enterprise Singapore) | CTC Grant (NTUC / e2i) | |
|---|---|---|
| Co-funding | Up to ~50% of qualifying costs | Up to 70% of qualifying costs |
| Core focus | Business outcomes — capability, innovation, market access | Business and worker outcomes together |
| Training included | Not the main thrust | Yes — training tied to the project is funded |
| Special requirement | Detailed project proposal | Form a CTC; commit to measurable worker outcomes |
| Best when | A pure business/capability project | Transformation that reshapes how your team works |
The headline difference is the co-funding rate: up to 70% versus the EDG’s roughly 50%. But the deeper difference is what each grant is trying to achieve. The EDG asks, “will this make the business stronger?” The CTC grant asks, “will this make the business stronger and leave your workers better off?” — and it pays more because you’re committing to both.
How it stands out
Three things make the CTC grant genuinely distinctive, especially for an AI project.
It pays a bigger share. A higher co-funding ceiling means more of your project cost is covered, which materially changes the maths on a transformation that would otherwise feel out of reach.
It funds the technology and the training together. Most grants fund the tool; the people are left to figure it out. The CTC grant funds both as one project — the automation and the courses, in-house training, and reskilling that teach your team to work alongside it. For anything AI-related, that’s not a nice-to-have. It’s the difference between a tool that gets used and one that gets abandoned.
It’s designed for the reason AI projects usually fail. This is the one that matters most. The common reason AI and automation efforts flop isn’t the technology — it’s that they’re dropped on a team that wasn’t redesigned around them, so nobody adopts them. The CTC grant structurally forces you to do the thing that makes AI stick: redesign the jobs, train the people, and improve their prospects as part of the project, not after it. It funds exactly the part that the failures skipped.
There’s a bonus, too. Because disbursement is tied to real worker outcomes — better wages, better roles — the grant nudges you toward the very things that keep good staff from leaving while you’re modernising. The funding and the retention work in the same direction.
Which kind of SME it’s for
This is where honesty matters, because the CTC grant is excellent for some businesses and a poor fit for others.
It’s a strong fit if:
- Your transformation genuinely changes how your team works — AI or automation that redesigns roles, not just a tool bolted on the side.
- You employ a meaningful base of local staff (Singapore Citizens or PRs) whose roles and wages can realistically improve.
- You’re willing to commit to concrete worker outcomes — a pay rise, a career plan, a skills allowance — and see them through.
- You’d value the higher 70% co-funding and want the training costs covered in the same project.
- You’re open to forming a CTC and working with e2i or your union through it.
It’s probably not the right grant if:
- You just want to buy a piece of software with no real impact on how people work — a simpler scheme like PSG, or the EDG, will be less effort.
- Your workforce is largely non-local, since the worker-outcome benefits are aimed at Singaporean and PR employees.
- You’re not prepared to commit to, and deliver, measurable improvements for staff — because without that, the funding won’t disburse.
The pattern is clear: the more your AI project is really a people-and-process change rather than a pure tech purchase, the more the CTC grant outshines the alternatives.
The honest trade-off
None of this is free money, and it shouldn’t be sold that way. Forming a CTC, defining credible worker outcomes, and actually delivering them is real work, and the grant holds you to it — you don’t see the money until the outcomes are met. The administration is more involved than buying a pre-approved tool off a catalogue.
But that trade-off is also the reason it works. The conditions force the discipline that makes transformation succeed instead of stalling. For an SME serious about modernising with its team rather than around them, the extra effort buys both a bigger subsidy and a project far more likely to actually pay off. As with any government scheme, the rates, caps, and timelines can change, so validate the current terms directly with e2i or NTUC before you plan around them.
Where Oasis Web Asia comes in
The CTC grant rewards exactly the way we already like to build: AI and automation scoped around how your team actually works, with the job redesign and adoption treated as part of the project rather than someone else’s problem. We can help you shape a transformation that delivers a real business result and the worker outcomes the grant looks for, then document it so it’s ready when you work with e2i. And if your project would genuinely be better served by a simpler grant, we’ll tell you that too — the kind of straight answer an AI consultancy Singapore businesses trust should give before any work begins.
If you’ve got an AI or automation project in mind and want to know whether the CTC route fits it, that’s exactly the conversation we like to have.
Start a conversation → — get a free consultation with our Singapore-based team.