Mr Andrew Khaw: Singapore has good access to Asian markets, with 3 billion people within a seven-hour flight radius.

The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) has raised the bar for the type of startup activity that it hopes to attract to Singapore, and the move has been paying off. Since it shifted its focus to engineering and business development, 26 startups have responded by setting up their engineering centres here, including online investment research resource Wikinvest, the world’s largest mobile-first community mig33 and enterprise cloud company Intalio.

Speaking at the Startups Track of the recent Infocomm Industry Forum 2009, which was organised by IDA, Mr Andrew Khaw, Senior Director, Industry Development Group, IDA, pointed out that Singapore was not just a confluence of established multinationals from the developed economies, but also a launch pad for fast-growing Indian and Chinese enterprises – about 2,600 Indian and 2,300 Chinese companies. The country’s excellent access to Asian markets, with 3 billion people within a seven-hour flight radius, is an
important attraction.

Singapore has a well-established reputation for being business-friendly. In his presentation at the Infocomm Industry Forum, Mr Terence Swee, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of muvee, cited the country’s infrastructure, stability, efficiency and pro-business government as some reasons why startups would want to set up their operations here. “We have staff from 15 nationalities and the record for getting a work permit approved is two hours; the longest was seven days,” he said.

In the area of intellectual property (IP) protection, Singapore ranked No 1 in the Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010 for IP protection. Companies can file for IP protection globally from Singapore, whose IP regime has been harmonised with that of the United States (US) since the establishment of the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement in 2003.

Corporate tax rates are attractive, and there was no capital gains tax and no withholding tax on repatriated profits
in 2009.

In terms of talent availability, Singapore was ranked top for Best Skilled Labour in Asia Pacific according to IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2008. This is something that Mr Michael Sha, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wikinvest, can attest to. “The amount of industry experience that the Singapore team had compared to folks in the United States is different but the impact they have is the same, and I think a lot of that is a credit to the community and educational system here,” he said.

Recently, Singapore was also ranked Most Innovative Nation in the World by Boston Consulting Group, and emerged The Most Innovatively Competitive Nation in the 2009 report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

According to Mr Khaw, there continues to be a healthy pipeline of startups that IDA is attracting to Singapore that will enrich the diversity of the country’s infocomm ecosystem. “These moves by the startups which come from innovation hubs in the world such as Silicon Valley, Israel and Scandinavia, are testament to the value of Singapore,” he said.