Notwithstanding my post the other day about a shortcoming of one specific government support scheme for tech entrepreneurs, Singapore continues to be seen by entrepreneurs as an attractive place to do business , and rightly so.
Taslima Khan quotes me and several others in Business Today, a fortnightly publication in India, about Indian entrepreneurs' Look East Policy, specifically focusing on Singapore as a destination for Indian entrepreneurs to move HQ to, raise money or otherwise expand.
Singapore's advantages over India? Briefly:
- Ease of listing Singapore-domiciled companies on various stock exchanges. India-domiciled companies cannot be listed directly on a foreign stock exchange.
- Singapore's small market, perhaps paradoxically, gives start-ups the cachet of being a regional or global company, as opposed to an Indian (Chinese/Malaysian/American/Indonesian/etc) company, which might be seen as focused purely on the domestic market
- No capital controls
- Predictable policy-making
- Comfort among customers and partners from around the world to work and sign contracts with Singapore-registered companies
- Low taxes
- Established brand in the business world
- Being a regional centre for decison-making for some industries, such as advertising and financial services
- Indian entrepreneurs feel culturally comfortable in Singapore
Having said that, only moving one's legal HQ to Singapore while maintaining substantially all operations within India may not achieve much, as I said in the Business Today piece.
There are of course disadvantages too, two of the most commonly cited in my experience being higher cost of operations and a much smaller base of potential employees to choose from.
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