Brussels positions itself in the Singapore market
Connecting Southeast Asia’s gateway to Europe: that is the aim of the new Singapore-Brussels route being operated by Singapore Airlines again after a 20-year hiatus. This is an eagerly awaited reconnection on both sides of the globe, in terms of tourism and business, with hub.brussels in the cockpit.
Important news for companies wanting to do business or strengthen their economic ties with Singapore: Singapore Airlines has relaunched its famous Singapore-Brussels route, which was interrupted in 2004 following the SARS epidemic in Asia. There is now no need to transit via Munich, Frankfurt, Zurich, London, Schiphol or Paris to reach the city-state.
Belgium – via its Embassy, its Regions, Brussels Airport and its Chamber of Commerce – actively lobbied for the re-establishment of this route due to the business opportunities available in Singapore for its companies.
Turning opportunity into action
As well as being the gateway to Northern Europe and an institutional hub, Brussels is also a source of business and tourism opportunities for Singapore. This interest has been confirmed by the opening of the third European office of the STB, the Singapore Tourism Board (the Singapore government agency responsible for promoting tourism in the broadest sense) in Brussels, after London and Frankfurt.
hub.brussels is taking advantage of this interest – and this new route – to rebuild links and bridges with South-East Asia, by promoting sustainable and innovative entrepreneurship, the spearhead of our Region’s Shifting Economy strategy.
Crafts, soft mobility and CCI
With this in mind, our teams set up a “seduction” operation, inviting five Singaporean influencers specialising in various themes such as lifestyle, mobility, food, art and tech to travel on board one of the inaugural flights.
They had the opportunity to spend three days discovering the many assets of Brussels and its sectors with a strong environmental and social impact. These visits, organised in particular with the Brussels Expertise Label, helped to promote “Made in Brussels” and place within their Brussels context companies working to make our capital stand out internationally in the soft mobility, crafts and Cultural and Creative Industries sectors: Dandoy (cookies), Marcolini (chocolates), Baobab (candles), Ahooga (bicycles) and Transurb (rail and urban mobility).
hub.brussels is also making its presence felt on the peninsula, thanks in particular to its on-site office and the expertise of its Economic and Commercial Delegate and their teams. They offer a welcome and reassuring link for Brussels-based companies wanting to explore the Singapore market, as well as for local companies looking to set up in Brussels. Since the start of 2024, our on-site team has already monitored and supported 15 Brussels-based companies.
When innovation and sustainable development go hand in hand
While Singapore and Brussels have several points in common, such as their climate challenges and the small size of their territory, which constantly push them to think “out of the box”, they also complement each other in a few other ways.
Brussels is therefore repositioning itself as a nerve centre for impact entrepreneurship. And it is this expertise that Singaporean companies hope to take back in their suitcases, as Brussels is the fourth most sustainable city in the world, according to Euromonitor International’s ranking (Top 100 City Destinations – 2021), while Belgium achieved a score of 79.5 for the Sustainable Development Goals in the United Nations’ 2023 report, placing it 19th in the overall world ranking. The Brussels-Capital Region is also ranked among Europe’s leading regions in terms of innovation (Regional innovation scoreboard 2023 – European Commission).
Singapore also stands out when it comes to innovation (particularly in the medtech, fintech and telecoms sectors), with its lack of space forcing it to innovate more and more to create jobs and continue to grow economically. Unsurprisingly, the country ranked 5th in the Global Innovation Index 2023, just behind Switzerland, Sweden, the USA and the UK.
