Just fewer than 16,000 new businesses were formed in Singapore in the second quarter of 2015, marking a nine percent increase over the number of companies formed in the first quarter of the year.
According to the latest company registration statistics published quarterly by corporate services provider Hawksford Singapore, there were 15,964 new business formations in Q2 2015 against 14,641 registrations in the first three months of the year. More than half of these new companies (54.7 percent) were private limited companies. Of the total number of private limited companies formed in the second quarter of 2015, the vast majority (84.6 percent) were exempt private limited companies.
The top-three industry sectors represented among the new business formation in Q2 were wholesale trade, financial services, and head office and management consulting activities. The British Virgin Islands, the United States, Hong Kong, China, Japan, and India were the top investing countries in Singapore in the second quarter.
The total number of businesses formed in Q2 2015 was 14.6 percent lower than the corresponding period in 2014. However, Hawksford attributed last year's "inflated" figures to a sharp spike in sole proprietorship and partnership formations prompted by measures announced in the 2014 Budget.
Under the 2014 Budget, the Productivity and Innovation Credit Scheme was extended for three years to 2018, enabling businesses to claim a deduction of up to 400 percent on a maximum of SGD400,000 (USD290,000) of qualifying expenditure. In addition, to help small- and medium-sized enterprises make substantial investments to revamp their businesses, the Government raised the expenditure cap for each of the qualifying activities from SGD400,000 to SGD600,000 with effect from year of assessment 2015.
By Courtesy of LowTax
