SMEs work around travel curbs, long quarantines to persist with China expansion

CHINA has been an outlier in maintaining an unrelenting zero-Covid policy, but some Singapore small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are still knocking at its doors, pushing ahead with previously adjourned plans despite the challenges posed by pandemic curbs.

Firms told The Business Times (BT) that the opportunities presented by the world's second-largest economy have driven them to navigate roadblocks to establish a physical presence in China - from setting up a wholly foreign-owned enterprise (WFOE), to putting together a dedicated team of employees on the ground, to working around travel curbs to enter the market.

According to Enterprise Singapore (ESG), the volume of internationalisation activities the agency has facilitated to China has fallen to 70 per cent of pre-Covid levels over the past 2 years. Such activities include facilitating market advisory, organising events, partnership introductions, government advocacy and generating project leads, said Wong Yoke Hui, ESG's global markets director (China).