The tropical city-state of Singapore isn’t just a great tourist destination, it is a vibrant business hub serving the entire Asia-Pacific region. Singapore has everything a business might need, a highly skilled local workforce, strict enforcement of intellectual property rights, and a business-friendly regulatory environment!
When you couple all of that to a thriving economy, a highly reasonable tax system, and general ease of operation, it’s easy to see why so many international businesses apply for company registration in Singapore, the economic powerhouse of Southeast Asia!
Let’s now take a closer look at all that Singapore has to offer businesses:
Strategic Location – Singapore occupies a highly strategic position among regional economic leaders like Korea, China, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand as well as highly promising emerging markets like India, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
Singapore’s bustling downtown economic zone is served by the highly efficient Changi International Airport, which is visited daily by 80 international airlines that connect over 300 world cities. The airport is frequented by around 20 million passengers yearly who are able to conveniently and quickly reach a number of popular Asia-Pacific destinations in just a matter of a few hours.
Changi International Airport is also host to a large number of global logistics operations like FedEx, Kuroneko, and UPS. The World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index’s recent survey of global freight forwarders and express carriers ranked Singapore as Asia’s foremost location for high performance logistics.
Singapore is also an excellent maritime cargo destination, with an advanced seaport that provides over 200 international shipping lines with links to around 600 seaports located in 125 other countries. Singapore is one of the world’s most active container ports with 20% of the world’s transshipment trade measuring 1.15 billion gross tonnes of goods passing through its docks yearly! All of this makes the Port of Singapore a uniquely strategic location easily accessible to two oceans!
Excellent Infrastructure – The city-state of Singapore boasts one of the world’s most excellent infrastructures for businesses, a dynamic web that includes its internet, commercial buildings, airport, highway systems, subway, and other public transportation. Always looking to the future, Singapore has implemented remarkable advances in its technological infrastructure, taking its place as a regional digital hub, and making steady progress in capital availability while providing support for sensible regulation for technological development. Singapore regularly ranks as Asia’s number one infrastructure, surpassing stiff competition from the likes of Japan and Korea.
Much of Singapore’s infrastructure has been developed over the past decade, with an ultramodern design approach capable of meeting the constantly growing demands of international businesses. Singapore can always offer state-of-the-art facilities for any business purpose, it’s the best place to make things happen!
Thriving Economy – Singapore has achieved great renown for establishing a thriving free-market economy fuelled by finance, manufacturing, and trade. Approximately 80% of Singapore’s GDP is made up of services allowing it to maintain an incredibly high employment rate and extremely low inflation. Even though Singapore’s domestic market is relatively small, the city-state is consistently regarded as being among the world’s the most stable economies. Since Singapore’s economy is largely driven by exports in electronics and machinery manufacturing, along with financial services, the result is no foreign debt, high government revenue, and yearly positive surplus, it is certainly a marvel when compared to most other countries.
The World Economic Forum consistently ranks Singapore as the most open economy in the world. With its gross national savings running nearly 50% of its GDP, and S$500 billion per annum exports, Singapore’s trade-to-GDP ratio is among the world’s highest. All of this has propelled Singapore to become a global hub for entrepreneurship, wealth management, and innovation.
Competitive Tax Structure – Singapore is home to one of the world’s most competitive tax structures, with the highest corporate tax rate on taxable income lying at 17%. Singapore also charges one of the world’s lowest value-added tax rates, there are no capital gains taxes, and income tax is levied on locally generated income. Singapore is also attractive to enterprises looking to form holding companies because income earned by the foreign subsidies of these companies is also tax exempt!
Singapore is also a participant with 62 countries in a network of Avoidance of Double Taxation Agreements (DTAs), as well as maintaining investment protection agreements with most of the world’s nations.
Startup Support – The Singapore government is highly supportive of startups, offering a variety of subsidies, grants, and funding for both local and international startups. Initiatives like the Enterprise Development Grant, EDB Singapore’s Innovation, R&D, and Capability Development Startup SG Tech, all help subsidize labour costs which greatly enhances the scope of Singapore’s business operations.
Singapore’s business infrastructure is based on a culture of entrepreneurship, which makes it so innovative and startup-friendly. The city-state ranks second in Asia for investment in startups!
Ease Of Doing Business – The World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report consistently ranks Singapore among its highest, giving it a triple-A-rating for its inclusive economy and for being a very stable location for international expansion. Capital can be easily accessed by entrepreneurs and investors thanks to Singapore’s 31 merchant banks, 128 commercial banks, and over 600 capital market service license holders, all ready to help your business grow.
Unlike many other competing countries, Singapore affords equal opportunities to local and overseas firms, the pro-business government’s transparent economic and regulatory policies make the ease of doing business one of the world’s best. Singapore is wide open to global capital and technology, and actively supports investment-friendly policies and free-market competition. All of this combines with Singapore’s modern and multicultural society to create a friendly internationally connected business centre that is truly a model for the world.
Singapore is a global hub for financial services and technological innovation that attracts thousands of investors and entrepreneurs from all over the world every year. Its strategic geographical location, booming economy, forward-thinking support of startups, lucrative tax incentives, and top-quality business infrastructure makes Singapore one of the top destinations for businesses to incorporate their companies in, it’s perfectly engineered for success!
