Big rebound in exports and foreign investments

Singapore’s external economy rebounded strongly last year – outward-bound goods and services clocked double-digit percentage growth while direct investments abroad more than doubled. International Enterprise (IE) Singapore reported that the export of both domestic goods and re-exports grew 20 per cent from 2009 to S$479 billion. Within the first 9 months of 2010, services that local companies provided for overseas projects hit S$111 billion, 15 per cent higher than the same period in 2009.

Beyond trade, Singapore-based companies are also making heftier direct investments overseas - S$15 billion abroad within the first nine months of 2010, about two-and-a-half times what was invested in the same period in 2009.There is renewed interest in pursing overseas expansion after such plans were shelved when the global downturn hit. Last year, IE ran more business missions and helped 66,000 companies explore opportunities abroad.
This is 22 per cent up from 2009.

From exploration to actual investments, IE also facilitated 366 overseas projects by Singapore-based companies last year, compared to 253 in 2009. SMEs made up 90 percent of the companies IE assisted last year and to-date, six in ten have some form of overseas operation.

In its bid to help local companies pool resources and gain competitiveness abroad, IE, under the International Partners Programme, helped to form 13 consortium groups in urban solutions, biomedical science, food and infocomm technology which is expected to bring inS $586 million in overseas sales in the next 3-5 years.