Transcript: Singapore insights and opportunities
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Christopher Rees ‒ Senior Trade Commissioner Singapore
Chris manages a team of 13 trade, education and investment specialists supporting the efforts of Australian businesses in Singapore and across ASEAN.
Fluent in Japanese, he joined Austrade in 1992 after many years in international business, to establish Austrade’s office in Fukuoka, Japan. He has also served in Hong Kong as Senior Trade Commissioner and Deputy Consul General (Commercial), helping Australian firms enter Hong Kong and the Pearl River region. More recently, he was Senior Trade Commissioner and Consul General in Osaka, Japan, promoting Australia’s international business interests in the powerful Kansai economic region.
Transcript
>>Christopher Rees: One interesting thing about the Singapore market for our food and beverage exporters is that we already have a very high level of penetration in that market. Indeed, in most market sectors we actually have the number one market share and in most supermarkets you can see a wide range of products that you’d be very familiar with in Australia, especially in the dairy area. Food safety and food security are major issues all over Asia and Singapore is no exception. We have a great opportunity to take advantage of the fantastic reputation we already have in that market to go further up the value chain.
...that Singapore’s actually the largest hub for aircraft engine manufacture outside of Europe and there are a number of major international aircraft engine manufacturers who are gradually moving the major part of their production over there. That offers us enormous opportunities to participate in some of the global supply chains that those primes are engaged in; they’re very active to identify new vendors to work with them on product development and in many cases to actually invest in those vendors that they’ve established to secure both supply and quality. There’s an amazing opportunity there for Australian companies.
Having strong government to government connections is a vital part of doing business in Singapore, perhaps more so than many other jurisdictions. So having an established government framework within Austrade, as well as the very, very strong relationships and linkages between the Singaporean and Australian governments is a tremendous advantage for Australian companies looking to get a foothold in the Singapore market.
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