Enterprise Singapore urges firms into China niches

Enterprise Singapore is steering Singapore companies toward specialised openings in China, where overall growth was 4.7% in the first half of 2026, The Straits Times reported on Oct. 23.

The advice matters because advanced manufacturing value added at large industrial enterprises grew 13.3% year on year in the same period, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, creating demand for suppliers.

Kow Juan Tiang, Enterprise Singapore’s executive director for China, identified technology and innovation, healthcare and biomedicine, and green products and services as faster-growing areas for Singapore firms, the newspaper reported.

“Even though there’s competition, at least the pie is growing there,” Kow told reporters in September, according to The Straits Times.

The report framed the opportunity as narrower than in earlier decades, when rapid Chinese expansion made the market easier for foreign entrants. Chinese consumers are spending more cautiously after a prolonged property slump and broader economic uncertainty, while intense local rivalry has compressed margins.

Xnergy, a Singapore start-up, is pursuing that niche strategy by supplying wireless chargers for robots rather than building robots itself. Chief Executive Tong Chin Fong said China’s robotics market has changed sharply since the company began in 2018, when the industry produced about 100,000 mobile units annually.

“Today, one of our customers alone produced 100,000 units in the first seven months of 2026,” Tong told reporters at Xnergy’s research and development laboratory at Suzhou Industrial Park in Jiangsu province.

The company adapted technology first developed at Nanyang Technological University with Chinese robotics companies and used China’s manufacturing base to move into production within three years, The Straits Times reported. Xnergy has sold 7,000 units worldwide, including to Slovenia through a Chinese customer’s expansion.

Quantified Energy, another Singapore firm cited in the report, is targeting China’s solar industry after panels are installed. Co-founder Khoo Yong Sheng said China’s installed solar capacity is expected to reach about 1.5 terawatts in 2026, equivalent to roughly three billion solar panels.

The company, founded by a team from the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore at the National University of Singapore, uses autonomous drones, artificial intelligence and electroluminescence imaging, a technique that helps reveal solar-panel defects, to inspect installations.

“Our technology allows us to complete inspection faster, more accurately and with less manpower than our competitors,” Khoo said, according to the report.

The same logic applies in healthcare. LionTCR, a Singapore biotech company spun off from A*STAR, is using China’s medical research institutes and hospitals to develop and test T-cell immunotherapies for hepatitis B and liver cancer, The Straits Times reported.

China’s research base is part of the draw. The country spent about $585 billion, or 2.8% of gross domestic product, on research and development in 2025, according to the report.

The approach still carries risks. The Straits Times said China’s “involution,” a term used in China for cut-throat competition, has forced some domestic companies to close and pushed others overseas. In solar manufacturing, the report cited overcapacity and a price war as reasons newcomers may avoid direct competition.

For larger Singapore groups, adaptation rather than sector selection may be the test. CapitaLand manages 49 shopping malls in China and is changing tenant mixes as consumers shift spending online and malls face weaker footfall, according to the report.

Source: news article, The Straits Times, Oct. 23, 2026