UK tech companies eye Singapore as a gateway for regional expansion
This week, Singapore hosted a team of 24 British businesses looking to expand in the Asia Pacific. They work on projects such as deep tech, cybersecurity, lawtech, and driverless cars. The British High Commission is hosting them for a week in Singapore. In a meeting with the Ministry of Law, Cyber Security Agency, GovTech, and Infocomm Media Development Authority.
These initiatives make up the inaugural UK-Singapore Digital Economy Dialogue, a platform for promoting the advantages of digital commerce, strengthening alliances at the levels of both government and business, and ensuring that legislation keeps up with the rate of innovation.
The visiting companies will use the brand-new UK-Singapore Digital Economy Agreement (DEA) to help their expansion throughout the Asia Pacific region. The DEA is the first Digital Economy Pact between a European and an Asian country, making it the most creative trade agreement in the world. It is worth noting that over £17 billion is traded annually between the UK and Singapore.
Tech Nation, which is the top development platform for tech startups in the UK, is co-leading by setting up a delegation and a schedule of 90 meetings with business partners and investors.
Lawtech: A promising area for future development
Ten lawtech companies from the UK are in Singapore to look for potential opportunities in the Asia Pacific region.
The term "lawtech" is frequently used to refer to technologies that support, supplement, or replace conventional methods used by law practice organisations or attorneys to deliver legal services or conduct legal transactions.
The first trade deal in the world with specific provisions on lawtech is the UK-Singapore Digital Economy Agreement. The legal technology market in the UK is estimated to be worth £11.4 billion by Tech Nation. The UK is second only to the US globally regarding the size of the legal services market.
The DEA connects two top nations for legal services and will make it easier for businesses to find chances for collaboration in both markets. It features special clauses that support electronic contracts and signatures, safeguard global data flows, and guarantee the security of critical private data.
Businesses may trade digitally between Singapore and UK with greater comfort, thanks to the DEA. The UK-Singapore Digital Economy Agreement will take full use of this chance by uniting two high-tech nations in a dynamic agreement that keeps up with the rate of technological advancement.
In conjunction with the first Digital Economy Dialogue under the UK-Singapore Digital Economy Agreement, we are pleased that UK digital startups are visiting Singapore, according to Gabriel Lim, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Singapore. This is a chance to bring together key players in the sector to discuss how we can take advantage of this innovative agreement and support our businesses, particularly startups and SMEs, in taking advantage of new growth prospects beyond our unified and expanding digital markets.
In a statement by Samantha Evans, Director of International at Tech Nation, said, "We have already helped over 300 UK IT scaleups derisk and boost their growth into the Asia Pacific as a part of the UK government's Digital Trade Network, with the majority of them aiming to expand into Singapore first".
Given the need for British tech to develop into this market, they look forward to expanding their engagement with the UK and Singaporean governments to support even more scaleups with their progress in this sector.
