‘Asean's gateway' Singapore offers foreign tech start-ups unparalleled growth potential
Singapore, with its dynamic digital economy and supportive business environment, has become a magnet for foreign technology start-ups and also serves as a strategic gateway to the fast-expanding markets of Southeast Asia.
The transformation of the city state and other countries among the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) bloc – which includes Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam – was highlighted in the Global Innovation Index 2024, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization.
The latest edition of the index, which ranks the creativity of 133 of the world's economies and the top 100 science and technology clusters, reveals the rapid progress of various Asean member nations over the past decade in advancing their innovation ecosystems.
It also makes special mention of Asean's close regional integration and, importantly, vital cooperation in the areas of science, technology, intellectual property, and facilitating the free flow of information and investment capital.
Moreover, key metrics show that Asean's combined investment in research and development (R&D) reached US$54.9 billion in 2023, which is more than five times the US$10.6 billion recorded for 2002. This has helped to make the bloc a global leader in hi-tech exports – an area of trade which in Asean rose in value from US$303 billion in 2013 to US$598 billion in 2022.
Many overseas tech companies realise that the bloc's many burgeoning strengths make it an ideal location for regional manufacturing centres, new markets, research partners, or simply a good base to establish a start-up.
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