China’s Tencent to set up a regional hub in Singapore

The tech giant had been considering setting up its regional hub in the city-state, as well as shifting some of its business operations out of China, a source told Bloomberg.

Apart from opening a new office in Singapore to “support [their] growing business in Southeast Asia and beyond,” it will also recruit people for tech and business development, the company said in a statement. Its hiring site features dozens of job openings, including posts for cross-border commerce, cloud computing, and esports.

Tencent has been increasingly turning to Southeast Asia and establishing it as a key battlefield after the US had issued an executive order banning transactions with the company and India had banned its games PUBG Mobile and Arena of Valor.

Last week, TikTok’s operator ByteDance was also reportedly planning to spend several billions of dollars and add hundreds of jobs over the next three years in Singapore. Additionally, the Alibaba Group is said to be in talks to invest US$3 billion into Singapore’s ride-hailing giant Grab.