China’s market is tougher than ever. Where can Singapore firms still find room to grow?

BEIJING – As China’s robotics industry booms, Singapore start-up Xnergy wants a slice of the action – not by making robots, but by developing wireless chargers that keep them running.Xnergy is betting that demand for its chargers will soar as Chinese manufacturers race to automate production and deploy robots in ever more industries.“When we started out in 2018, China’s robotics industry was small, with just 100,000 mobile units produced annually. Today, one of our customers alone produced 100,000 units in the first seven months of 2026,” said Xnergy chief executive and co-founder Tong Chin Fong.“During the gold rush, those selling spades made the most money. Now when everyone is chasing robots, we are the ones selling the spades – wireless chargers for robots,” he told reporters at the firm’s research and development laboratory at Suzhou Industrial Park in coastal Jiangsu province.Xnergy is among Singapore companies carving out niches in China’s fiercely competitive market by offering technologies and solutions that complement, rather than compete head-to-head with, those of Chinese firms.Spotting such niches is becoming increasingly important as China’s market grows tougher. Gone are the heady days of the 2000s when China’s economy was roaring ahead and almost any business seemed a ticket to riches.With Chinese consumers tightening their purse strings amid a prolonged property slump and economic uncertainty, Singapore companies could be forgiven for wondering whether the Chinese market still offers the rewards it once did.Cut-throat competition, or “involution” as it is known in China, has squeezed profit margins, forced some Chinese companies to fold and driven others overseas in search of greener pastures.If even local players are struggling on their home turf, do Singapore companies stand a chance of gaining a foothold and thriving in China?Green shoots and growing piesYes, if they choose their sectors carefully and play to their strengths, says Kow Juan Tiang, Enterprise Singapore’s executive director for China.He identified three fast-growing areas: technology and innovation, healthcare and biomedicine, and green products and services.“Even though there’s competition, at least the pie is growing there,” Kow told reporters in September.The Straits Times visited Xnergy and other Singapore companies in Shanghai, Suzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in September as part of a media trip organised by Enterprise Singapore.The three sectors are also broadly aligned with priorities in China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, the country’s economic blueprint for 2026 to 2030.China needs technological innovation to support advanced manufacturing, a key area the government has poured resources into as it strives to move up the industrial value chain and compete with the United States.Advanced manufacturing has expanded much faster than the overall economy. Value added at large industrial enterprises in the sector grew 13.3% year on year in the first half of 2026, far outpacing China’s overall economic growth of 4.7%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.For companies such as Xnergy, the expansion creates opportunities to supply the technologies that power China’s increasingly automated factories.The firm brought technology first developed at Nanyang Technological University to China, where it worked with local robotics companies to fine-tune the design for its wireless chargers, and tapped Chinese manufacturing capabilities to bring them into production within three years.It has since sold 7,000 units worldwide, including as far afield as Slovenia, where one of its Chinese customers has expanded.Another Singapore company finding opportunities in an expanding industry without competing directly with Chinese manufacturers is Quantified Energy. It has set its sights on the green economy.While newcomers to China’s solar-panel manufacturing industry face overcapacity and a bruising price war, Quantified Energy sidesteps competition by focusing on what happens after the panels are installed – checking that they are working properly.The company was founded by a team from the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS).Co-founder Khoo Yong Sheng told reporters the company came to China because of its vast market: China’s installed solar capacity is expected to reach about 1.5 terawatts in 2026, roughly equivalent to three billion solar panels.The company uses autonomous drones, artificial intelligence and electroluminescence imaging to detect defects in solar panels. “Our technology allows us to complete inspection faster, more accurately and with less manpower than our competitors,” said Dr Khoo.For Singapore companies with their own technologies, China offers not just a large customer base but also the research capabilities and manufacturing ecosystem to help them develop their products and expand overseas.China spent about US$585 billion (S$748 billion), or 2.8% of its gross domestic product, on research and development in 2025. It also has a large pool of engineering and research talent.Singapore biotech firm LionTCR has been leveraging China’s ecosystem of medical research institutes and hospitals to speed up the development and testing of its T-cell immunotherapies for diseases such as hepatitis B and liver cancer.Its technology is based on research by Antonio Bertoletti, a professor at Duke-NUS Medical School.The spin-off from Singapore’s A*STAR has built Good Manufacturing Practice-compliant facilities in Singapore and the China-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City to manufacture cell therapies.“We originated in Singapore and brought our innovation to China to accelerate clinical development and manufacturing. Our final goal is to go global,” said LionTCR chief executive Peng Xiaoming.Silver lining if one adaptsOpportunities are not confined to start-ups in emerging sectors. Even established Singapore companies in struggling traditional industries can find new ways to grow by being creative and nimble.Take CapitaLand, which manages 49 shopping malls across China.The wider retail industry has been grappling with declining mall footfall as shoppers increasingly turn to e-commerce or tighten their belts amid a prolonged property slump and a slower economy.CapitaLand’s strategy is to adjust its tenant mix to offer more experiences that consumers cannot easily get online.For example, at Raffles City The Bund, a large mall that CapitaLand operates in Shanghai, half the space originally earmarked for a cinema was converted to a wedding banquet venue. The change reflected a shift in viewing habits, with more people watching films at home or on their phones.But with fewer young Chinese tying the knot, the space was later reinvented as Xuyan, an immersive dining venue where guests can don traditional Chinese costumes, feast on exquisite dishes and watch fire-breathing stunts, acrobatics and dance performances inspired by the ancient Silk Road city of Dunhuang.When ST visited Xuyan in September, about 10 Western tourists were game enough to fork out nearly $200 each to dress up as Tang dynasty officials or court ladies, complete with elaborate hairstyles and make-up, for the meal and performance.CapitaLand’s shift towards selling experiences rather than just goods was shaped by a broader trend in China’s consumer market.During the first half of 2026, retail sales of services grew 5.3% year on year, far outpacing the 1.1% increase in the sales of goods.Kow, an Enterprise Singapore official, acknowledged that surviving in the hyper-competitive Chinese market can be tough, and that some Singapore companies will have to exit if they are not in a growth sector or are unclear about the value proposition they can offer.But that does not mean Singapore companies should write off the Chinese market.Kow pointed out that while China’s economic growth has slowed to 5% over the past two years, the sheer size of its economy means there are still substantial opportunities.With a GDP of roughly US$20 trillion, the world’s second-largest economy would, at that growth rate, add nearly US$1 trillion in output a year – roughly the size of a mid-sized economy, he said.For Singapore companies looking to enter China, Enterprise Singapore offers financial support for feasibility studies and can link them with accelerators to find local partners. It also helps companies understand how Chinese policies could affect their businesses.“Our role and our hope is to increase Singapore companies’ probability of success in China,” Kow said.