(Yicai) Nov. 11 -- The Chinese market has unlimited business opportunities for Singaporean firms, Kelvin Kee, an executive director at the Singapore Business Federation, told Yicai at this year’s China International Import Expo.

The SBF, Singapore’s largest chamber of commerce, brought 44 companies to the seventh CIIE in Shanghai, which ran from Nov. 5 to yesterday. The total exhibition space taken up by the SBF this year amounted to nearly 912 square meters across three major exhibition areas: consumer goods, food and agricultural products, and service trade.

Seventy percent of Singaporean exhibitors at the CIIE were returnees, while 30 percent were first-timers, proving that Singaporean companies are still interested in this key event in China’s international trade show calendar, Kee noted.

The SBF's National Business Survey 2024 showed that half of the Singaporean companies polled already have a presence in China, and about a quarter of the firms that plan to expand overseas are looking to the Chinese market.

Singapore experienced a similar economic slowdown to China, Lee said. In the early stage of economic take-off, there is a period of rapid economic growth, then after a certain level is reached growth slows, but turns to high-quality growth, he said. As a result, Singaporean businesses are still interested in China.

The SBF hosted the annual Singapore-China Trade and Investment Forum during the CIIE. At this year’s forum, companies from the two countries signed 15 non-binding deals worth more than SGD60 million (USD45 million) in areas such as cross-border trade solutions, construction technology, education services, healthcare and logistics.

China has been Singapore's largest trading partner for 11 years in a row, is its biggest export market and its top source of imports.

Editor: Tom Litting