Promisingly, other high-growth sectors – such as foodtech, semiconductors, digitech, biomedical sciences, healthcare and life sciences, agritech, and e-commerce – have also developed significantly in recent years and are positioned to become significant growth drivers after the epidemic.
All of this is a credit to Singapore’s gradual but audacious attempts to deliberately invest in high-growth areas.
Numerous emerging sectors have unique real estate requirements and demand a world-class environment to support their personnel and manufacturing processes.
Developing a Singapore Economy that is Resilient
As a result, they may benefit from partnering with a landlord that has extensive expertise developing top-tier commercial and industrial facilities and fostering innovative corporate ecosystems.
CapitaLand’s broad portfolio of industrial, commercial, and business park assets around the island has played a critical role in serving as a growth partner for businesses in a variety of industries.
Mr Aylwin Tan, CapitaLand’s chief customer solutions officer, explains: “When we interact with our tenants, we supply more than simply real estate and infrastructure. The difference with CapitaLand is that we are always investing in initiatives to cultivate innovation ecosystems and business communities inside our properties, whether they are business parks or standalone buildings.
“We are with our customers throughout their development journeys, knowing their requirements and cooperating with them to deliver the hardware and heartware they need to remain competitive in their respective sectors.”
Growth in Healthcare and Biomedical
With Asia-developing Pacific’s healthcare sector, biomedical and healthcare enterprises from across the world will continue to see Singapore as an appealing regional headquarters.
Heraeus Medical Components Singapore, for example, is a German multinational firm that maintains a medical wire manufacturing and research center. It chose to establish a presence in the Republic for a number of reasons, including the existence of several other medical device businesses, the Republic’s ready and accessible talent pool, and its strategic location in Asia-Pacific to service regional markets.
The firm attributes its efficiency in Singapore to its ability to house everything from research and development (R&D) through medical component production in one location at 53 Serangoon North Avenue 4, which is next to Heraeus’ regional headquarters at CapitaLand’s Techplace II.
Mr Eric Lee, managing director of Heraeus Medical Components (HMC) Singapore, said, “With the rise of the medical technology sector in Singapore and the region, HMC sees a significant growth potential that our site can assist.” CapitaLand has been a critical partner for us and has collaborated with us on growth plans throughout the years.”
Growth in E-Commerce
The epidemic of Covid-19, along with the expansion of South-east Asia’s Internet economy, has prompted Singapore to strive to become the region’s e-commerce powerhouse. Fast-growing businesses are always on the lookout for office premises that stimulate innovation and creativity – and e-commerce behemoth Shopee discovered just that at 5 Science Park Drive.
Located in one-thriving north’s technology district, the 244,000-square-foot building’s vast floor plates provided Shopee with the freedom and flexibility to design the space to meet its specific demands.
The company designed everything, from open offices and conference spaces that foster collaboration to Instagram-worthy perks like a full-sized gym and on-site diner that help workers feel at ease while they work.
Room to develop is critical for a firm experiencing rapid expansion – and since the company recruited quickly during the epidemic, it was able to secure more office space at neighboring flexible workspace Bridge+.
Due to the importance of delivery efficiency in e-commerce activities, warehouses – such as those at Changi Logistics Centre and 21 Changi South Avenue 2 – also offer space for logistics growth and end-to-end operations.
Growth in Foodtech and Agritech
Singapore, which aims to source 30% of its food locally by 2030, is spending extensively in upgrading its whole food value chain. Prestigious sites in technology districts are becoming more desirable for agritech companies looking to recruit top people and foster an innovative work environment.
Demand for Food Factory for food processing, packaging and central kitchen has also grown much as more people choose to order food online due to the pandemic. More developers has also started to build more food factory to fulfill the demand for food factory such as Apex FoodWorks and Foodfab @ Mandai.
Singapore Science Park is one solution, providing tenants with ideal requirements and research and development facilities to push the limits of food science. This is attracting businesses such as VertiVegies, an indoor vertical farm situated at The Cavendish. Sophie’s Bionutrients ferments its ground-breaking microalgae-based meals at its adjacent research and development facility, The Gemini.
Singapore Science Park provides ideal conditions for research and development, enabling companies like VertiVegies to push the limits of culinary science. Vertivegies
Tenants of indoor agricultural facilities are also gravitating to industrial premises, which provide high ceilings, enough electricity, adequate floor loading, and wide regular floor plates. Precede, for example, farms pesticide- and fungicide-free food in the contemporary but cost-effective Techplace II industrial area in Ang Mo Kio.
Regular Semiconductor Investments
With no end in sight to the electronics boom, the global semiconductor sector — a cornerstone of Singapore’s economic success – has seen sustained expansion. Singapore continues to attract major worldwide firms, such as AEM, a provider of semiconductor and electronic test solutions.
The company’s seven-story global headquarters at 52 Serangoon North Avenue 4 in Singapore, which it has leased from CapitaLand since 2005, includes everything from R&D and engineering laboratories to production of equipment and associated test fixtures and kits.
Mr Goh Meng Kiang, vice-president of operations at AEM, explains, “This site is quite central in Singapore, and although we previously had a facility in Tuas, getting employees there was a significant difficulty.” Our staff have found life considerably simpler since relocating here. We are bordered by both public and private housing, and there are several dining alternatives nearby.
“CapitaLand and its sizable inventory of leasable properties has been an excellent partner in assisting us in meeting our evolving space requirements as we continue to expand as a worldwide leader in test innovation.”
Your workstation, just how you want
With enterprises developing and repositioning themselves regularly in today’s environment, organizations often want to integrate their many value-chain operations under one roof. Corporations will value the adaptability provided by projects such as UBIX, a contemporary industrial complex with a huge continuous floor plate scheduled to open in the first quarter of next year.
Another example is Schneider Electric’s East Asia and Japan headquarters, which consolidated businesses throughout the island into a single facility at 50 Kallang Avenue.
It was possible to combine office, industrial, and flexible workplaces via a “convert-to-suit” renovation – all powered by 100 percent renewable (solar) energy throughout the day.
Environments intelligently designed for a smart city
Singapore is establishing a reputation as an innovation center, with its business and scientific parks, such as Singapore Science Park, attracting global technology companies. Apart from providing workspace, CapitaLand actively develops communities and creates platforms and ecosystems that enable people to innovate, learn, and connect to new possibilities.
Among these is the Smart Urban Co-Innovation Lab, a new living lab located inside Singapore Science Park that brings together technology businesses to research, develop, showcase, and implement smart city solutions. The lab will help about 200 enterprises in Singapore over the next three years by providing a platform for community development, networking events, and test-bed possibilities.
Additionally, Catapult, Southeast Asia’s first shared executive learning center, delivers leadership and innovation training to executives using cutting-edge technology like as virtual reality. It is located at Singapore Science Park and the forthcoming Rochester Commons complex.
Sustaining a healthy business environment
Businesses in Singapore must maintain a winning combination of comprehensive and intelligent work environments in order to thrive.
It is critical to have top-tier facilities that facilitate flawless company operations. But as critical is fostering the growth and flourishing of organic communities.
Developing such dynamic ecosystems will aid in the survival of these enterprises, and by extension, Singapore. It bears reiterating that having a landlord who is trusted by both locals and multinationals and who is willing to collaborate with companies on their development journeys in Singapore and abroad makes all the difference.
