You have a parent company in your home country and intend to venture abroad. Representative Office is the way to go. Representative Office is the best bet to get into a new market. It helps you to do market research, feasibility studies at a reasonable cost.
RO helps to explore the new market and it does not add on to overheads which generally come with any other type of establishment. RO is generally a temporary arrangement till the parent company can get the market feel and is confident enough to incorporate a subsidiary company or registering branch office.
Singapore gives an excellent opportunity for foreign companies to open Representative Offices. There are certain pre-requisites such as submission of the audited accounts of Parent Company with the application form and of course payment of fees.
For most of the business sectors the RO option is available, though banking, finance, insurance and legal sectors are excluded.
And the best part is the foreign company can lease office space and also appoint staff who can be from the HQ of the parent company or a Singapore employee of the parent company.
The thing to keep in mind is that only limited activities are under the scope of a RO. So any commercial money making activity is excluded.
