Company Formation

You have started a business in your home country sometime ago. You have gained a foothold in your chosen field. From that foothold you have expanded your business but certainly not before facing trying times along the way.

Now you are established in your chosen field, business is good and the next thing you need to do is to expand your business. You look around in your geographical neighborhood and think to yourself I need a place from which I can expand my business even further. You look for some country that is pro business with good connectivity both by air and sea. Politically stable with little or no red tape in doing business and where your money will be safe. You do a little research and set your sight on Singapore.

Your research invariably reveals that the first step is to incorporate a company. So you search for company formation details and service providers in Singapore. You are astounded by the number of service providers who clamor for your attention. You e mail a few of them with your queries and you are pleasantly surprised by the detailed response and the ease with which you can go about incorporating your company. They tell you that you do not really need to be physically present in Singapore to set up a company. You then ask what about opening a bank account and some will say that you can do this remotely depending on circumstances. Everything starts to look too good to be true and your last question is how much it will cost. Again you are astounded by the replies. There is a big difference in the quotations in terms of cost. You go for the ones that are kind to your budget. You go ahead and form a company without even stepping into Singapore.

You are pleased with the outcome and say to yourself that that was easy. You do not ask yourself important questions. Who are you really dealing with? Are they really as good as they claim to be? Who are you entrusting your hard earned money and plans to grow your business even further to? Some services providers today are themselves permanent residents who like you have come to Singapore to work and with some luck obtain their permanent residency. Permanent residency is not in itself “permanent” it has to be renewed every 5 years. Some are still on employment passes. Their knowledge will be limited in terms of advice and guidance. Their knowledge of the local languages and customs is practically nil. Their support structure will likely be non existent as they themselves will be operating from home. It is best to pay a visit to their office to see for yourselves.

On the other hand, Singaporean service providers will have invested money in acquiring the full support staff and capabilities in that they are here for the long haul and not disappear when the going gets tough.

Will you entrust your corporate service requirements in your home country to people who are not familiar with the workings of a company in your local context?

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