Go east: Exploring Scotland's growing links with Singapore

When I was living in Singapore as the correspondent for a UK-based newspaper, I would often walk across Cavenagh Bridge, a sturdy Victorian structure spanning a river running through the business district.

It’s been there since 1869, making it the oldest bridge still in use in Singapore in its original form. Scotland can take some credit for its longevity: it was built by P&W MacLellan, the Glasgow engineering firm that ceased trading in 1979.

The company’s name is still visible on the bridge, stamped on an iron railing. These days, a different sort of bridge connects Singapore and Scotland – one built from trade and investment.

Total trade in goods and services between the UK and Singapore was £23.4 billion in the four quarters to the end of the first quarter of this year, up 5.5 per cent on the same period a year earlier, according to the Department for Business & Trade.

Singapore is the third largest Asian investor in the UK after Hong Kong and Japan. The tiny city-state, which is only one and a half times the size of the Isle of Wight, channels more money into the UK than any of the Gulf states, South Korea or India. This amounted to £19 billion as of the end of 2023, the latest year for which figures are available. While a slight dip from the previous year, Singapore investment in the UK has been rising steeply since 2018.

Nik Mehta meets Scottish Government Business Minister Richard Lochhead | contributed

Zooming in on Scotland, there were 60 Singapore-owned companies operating here as of last year, employing about 2,300 people. Among them are Cyan Renewables, an offshore wind marine vessel operator that last year bought Aberdeen-based Sentinel Marine; ComfortDelGro, which owns the Scottish CityLink coach service (and Metroline in London); and Interplex, which employs150 people at an automotive component business in Arbroath.

Singapore is also the third largest export market for Scotch whisky, with the city-state mostly a re-export hub for Southeast Asia. Overall UK investment in Singapore jumped by 23 per cent to almost £16 billion by the end of 2023 compared to the same period a year earlier.

Growing interdependence between the two countries was cemented a couple of years ago with the signing of a “comprehensive strategic partnership”.

Given that neither country is insulated from increasingly challenging geopolitics, it makes sense for such ties only to grow.

That’s partly why UK High Commissioner to Singapore Nik Mehta was in Edinburgh a week ago on a week-long tour of the UK to boost economic ties – part of a rolling programme of visits by 10 UK ambassadors and high commissioners to the UK. 

This included stopping by Space Intelligence, an Edinburgh startup that uses satellite data to map deforestation levels to more accurately gauge carbon credits and project financing. Last month the company hired a sales executive in Singapore with a view to opening an office in what the annual Global Green Finance Index this year ranked as the most active green finance hub in Asia. This may be the ambition of some of the nine Scottish startups, including Rethink Carbon, that will arrive in Singapore next month under the Scottish government’s Techscaler programme.

“If you’re a technology company, you think about the West Coast of the US. But actually there are huge opportunities in Southeast Asia, set to be the fourth largest economy in the world in 10 years’ time,” Mehta told me. “And those opportunities go through Singapore, which has a complementary legal system to ours, plus the same language.”

He also visited Scottish Enterprise to discuss potential investment in the Grangemouth industrial complex. An EY study in March highlighted nine areas for potential alternative uses for the site in the “Project Willow” feasibility study. “The nine areas are all in the sweet spot of what I think Singaporean investors are looking at, whether it’s clean energy, waste management or sustainable aviation fuel,” Mehta said.

Singapore is certainly looking. OCBC, the country’s second largest bank, joined Mehta on the first half of his UK trip, which took in Manchester, Birmingham and Belfast. The bank in April signed a memorandum of understanding with the UK government under which it aims to invest a whopping £10 billion by 2030 in energy, infrastructure and real estate.

Stanley Cheuk, general manager of the bank’s London branch, says there has been “good progress” so far. “Areas of interest which may touch upon Scotland in the future include offshore wind development, infrastructure projects related to energy transition, and transportation,” he adds.

Offshore wind is a good fit. Attracting foreign investment into the supply chain is a priority for the Scottish and UK governments, while Singapore has a globally active marine renewables industry that has roots in the city-state’s long-standing expertise in rig building and port management.

In the summer of 2024, a delegation of nine Singapore companies visited Aberdeen to assess opportunities. Among them were Cyan Renewables, Seatrium, which operates wind turbine installation vessels, and Mooreast, which makes anchors for offshore wind.

However, slow progress on the vast ScotWind project in the North Sea, combined with uncertainty over the timing of grid and transmission upgrades, have created headwinds. I understand that Mooreast has suspended plans for a £21.5 million anchor factory in Aberdeen as a result.

And as a recent report by Oxford Economics for The Hunter Foundation pointed out, Scotland – and the UK - could learn from how Singapore has capitalised on stable governance, a pro-business outlook, and low taxation to drive success.

Mehta said: “Singapore investors will certainly be looking for progress on things like planning permissions around the country, on connectivity to the grid and ensuring that where you want to put high energy use industries, the power supply is there.

“But I think to a large extent they’ve been reassured by what they’re seeing. They like the fact that the UK government is trying to address these long-term challenges.”