Expanding into Southeast Asia with Singapore’s Market Readiness Assistance (MRA) Grant

If your company is registered in Singapore, there is a good chance you are able to cover up to S$100,000 of your new market expansion costs with the government’s Market Readiness Assistance grant (MRA).

Emerhub has been the service provider for hundreds of Singaporean companies in Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Learn more about the types of activities the grant covers and how Emerhub can support you.

Requirements to be eligible for the Market Readiness (MRA) Grant

The MRA Readiness Grant is targeting Singaporean SMEs expanding overseas. To be eligible, your company must meet the following requirements:

• The business entity is incorporated in Singapore.
• The target overseas country is a new market for you, the sales in that market have not exceeded S$100,000 in each of the last three years.
• The company has at least 30% local shareholding.
• The company’s group annual sales turnover is not more than S$100 million or does not hire more than 200 employees.

Activities supported by the Market Readiness (MRA) grant

Overseas market promotion (Capped at $20,000 per new market)

Overseas marketing and PR activities

The MRA grant supports third-party expenses for:

• In-store promotions, pop-up stores, and road shows to conduct marketing and PR activities.
• Site fee for overseas business/trade conferences.

Participation in Overseas Physical and Virtual Trade Fairs

• Event organizer’s cost for space rental, design, and construction of the booth for an overseas physical trade fair (capped at 36 square meters)
• Virtual trade fair’s fee for virtual exhibition hall, business meeting, speaking slots, webinar, and post-event analytics.
• Third-party costs for logistics and transportation of material overseas for virtual fairs
• Costs related to the publicity of trade and virtual fairs.

Overseas business development (Capped at $50,000 per new market)

Business matching

This covers the third-party costs for activities to identify potential partners or B2B customers which include:

• Joint venture partners
• Distributors and agents
• Licensees or franchisees

Overseas Marketing Presence (OMP)

Eligible project-specific expenses:

• Salary of one permanent business development staff deployed in overseas market. Supportable expenses are 70% for Singaporean national/permanent residents and 50% for foreigners.
• Rental of a business development office in an overseas market. 

In-market Business Development

This covers the subscription costs of outsourced business development services for a period of up to 12 months for the following activities:

• Training of the in-market business development officer.
• Business development activities to find new leads.
• Execution of market entry activities, review strategies, and future plans for setting up an entity in the market.
• Updates on the business development progress.

Overseas market setup (Capped at $30,000 per new market) 

Market entry

Legal, advisory, and documentation expenses relating to:

• Name and Intellectual Property (IP) search and application.
• Filing and registration for sales/representative offices or equity entity.
• Tax structure implementation
• Drafting of agreements for licensing, franchising, distributorship, and joint venture (only limited to the first set of agreements)
• Licenses for import and export.
• Trade Credit Insurance (TCI)

Getting started with the Market Readiness (MRA) Grant

If you are interested in getting started with your business expansion using the MRA grant, get in touch with Emerhub today to get a consultation and begin the process. As your partner, Emerhub provides you with localized knowledge of Southeast Asia that can help you secure the MRA grant, and also manage your expansion in the region.