Stories of ICMG Group
60th Anniversary of Japan-Singapore Diplomatic Relations: Leveraging Singapore as a 'Hub for Co-Creation' — ICMG Group's Approach to Social Implementation
Introduction: The 60th Anniversary as a Turning Point
In 2026, Japan and Singapore will mark a major milestone: the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. Over the past 60 years, the relationship between our two nations has shifted from "trade" to "investment," and is now transitioning into a phase of "co-creating business."
Singapore, which once developed as a hub for entrepôt trade, has evolved into a "Global Innovation Hub." It is a place where advanced technologies and expertise from around the world converge, materializing next-generation societal models at an unprecedented speed. While many Japanese companies have established bases here, merely using them as outposts for information gathering fails to unlock the true potential of this location. What is required now is to utilize Singapore as a "Co-Creation Platform," sharing risks with diverse local stakeholders to actively prototype new businesses.
Since establishing our Singapore office in 2011, ICMG has viewed this nation as a strategic platform to elevate corporate competitiveness across multiple layers, continuously working to build an ecosystem that integrates the public, private, and academic sectors.
Why Singapore?
Singapore commands an overwhelming global presence, highlighted by its #1 ranking in the 2024 Global Innovation Index. The driving force behind this is a profound sense of national urgency stemming from its "limitations in population, land, and resources." Operating on the premise that sustainable growth is impossible relying solely on domestic resources, Singapore chose a path of "absorbing external intelligence and opening up the entire country as a giant sandbox (testing ground)."
While Southeast Asia continues to grow as the world's "production" and "consumption" base, Singapore's role is undergoing a massive transformation. No longer just a place offering simple labor due to cost and land constraints, it has evolved into the "nerve center of innovation"—a place that links advanced technology with regional vitality to design the businesses of tomorrow. Singapore does not limit itself to domestic solutions; it openly invites technology and ideas from across the globe. This attitude of thorough open innovation is the very essence of Singapore's ecosystem.
Government-Led National Strategy: Serious Investment in Social Implementation
The Singaporean government is aggressively attracting investment and talent from around the world into priority areas such as AI, robotics, smart cities, and healthcare. The foundation of this effort is the national strategy "RIE (Research, Innovation and Enterprise)." After investing a $25 billion budget over the five years leading up to 2025, the government is drastically expanding this to $37 billion from 2026 onward, further accelerating investments into social implementation.
The core of this strategy lies in a multi-layered structure designed to ensure that research outcomes are reliably translated into "commercialization," rather than just providing research support. Universities and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) handle cutting-edge research while simultaneously bearing commercialization KPIs. By collaborating from the early stages with government agencies like the Economic Development Board (EDB) and Enterprise Singapore, as well as private companies, they have built a system that bridges the gap between research and the market.
Furthermore, institutional support—such as deregulation and subsidies to quickly test future business models—is incredibly robust. Proof-of-Concept (PoC) trials for new technologies, which might require time-consuming coordination in Japan, are swiftly accommodated by various ministries providing sandbox environments if they are deemed beneficial to national growth. This strong government backing is the foundation of Singapore's overwhelming speed of implementation.
A Co-Creation Ecosystem that Accelerates Innovation
Supporting this strategic government framework is a co-creation ecosystem with a density that is among the highest in the world. Iconic incubation hubs, such as Blk71, gather startups, highly skilled talent, and risk-taking investors from around the globe to create next-generation standards.
VCs, accelerators, universities, and government agencies provide multi-layered project support. Programs designed to encourage collaboration with large corporations go far beyond mere matchmaking; they are specifically designed with concrete social implementation as the end goal. A culture has taken root where players from industry, government, and academia fulfill their respective roles, interlocking like gears and mutually stimulating one another. This dynamism is the primary factor that elevates Singapore to the "easiest place in the world to shape innovation."
ICMG recognized this movement early on, establishing our local office in 2011. Through actual projects, we have built a highly dense network connecting government agencies, university research institutes, prominent startups, and the investor communities that support them.
ICMG's Perspective: Turning "Invisible Assets" into Business Results
The reason ICMG Group has remained rooted here since 2011 is our belief in Singapore's overwhelming dynamism. It has the power to transform the "invisible value" dormant within Japanese companies—such as exceptional technology, a strong desire by individuals and organizations to improve society, and corporate purpose—into tangible "business results."
Japanese companies possess vast, accumulated potential to make the world a better place. However, there are still too few examples of this "knowledge" being connected to a global context and rapidly materialized. By visualizing the sources of corporate value that do not appear on a balance sheet and strategically combining them with Singapore's multi-layered network, we accelerate new value creation.
What ICMG Can Do: "Execution Support for Co-Creation" Linking Ecosystems and Japanese Companies
ICMG's role in Singapore is to connect the local ecosystem with Japanese companies, providing "execution support for co-creation" that goes far beyond simple matchmaking. Specifically, we provide support through the following three approaches:
1.Building Partnerships Leveraging Deep Stakeholder Relationships
Through actual projects, we have forged deep relationships of trust with government agencies like A*STAR, EDB, JTC Corporation, and the Building and Construction Authority (BCA), alongside the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and numerous startups. Based on this extensive network, we flexibly involve optimal partners tailored to a Japanese company's situation and strategy, driving initiatives toward social implementation.
2.Hands-on Support for Programs and Projects that Don't End as "Study Tours"
We provide end-to-end support for Japanese companies, universities, and local governments, from program planning to implementation. If you are investing valuable resources to travel here, you need results that lead to tangible benefits, not just bringing back information. Therefore, what we value most are "serious, high-stakes" discussions with local investors and entrepreneurs. We provide hands-on support through the process of unearthing the entrepreneurial spirit dormant within individuals on the ground, and refining the resulting ideas into concrete prototypes for social implementation. And this transformation does not end in Singapore. Leaders and entrepreneurs who return home with their local experiences bring a "culture of questioning" back to their own organizations, regions, and communities. This chain reaction is the true value creation ICMG aims for.
3.Acting as a Principal via VC Investment, Beyond an Advisor Role
ICMG itself operates as a VC based in Singapore, acting as a "principal" who shares risks with portfolio companies while aiming for business growth. By directly injecting the dense "relationship capital" we hold with local entrepreneurs and top-tier investors into our initiatives with Japanese companies and universities, we achieve a depth of co-creation that cannot be reached through public information alone.
Concrete Co-Creation Case Studies
Here are representative examples of how technology and expertise cultivated in Japan have been elevated into concrete businesses within Singapore's "social implementation testing ground."
1. Overseas Expansion Support for a Japan-Born Startup (JR East's "Touch To Go")
Comprehensive support for the Singaporean expansion of "Touch To Go," an unmanned payment system originating from JR East. We successfully implemented a PoC at the headquarters of JTC Corporation, a government agency. Rather than just installing a system, we optimized the "invisible value" of Japan's unique technology to fit local smart city strategies and consumer behavior. We are now accelerating social implementation with an eye toward full-scale introduction at the Punggol Digital District (PDD), Singapore's first smart city hub.
2. Operation of the "Japan-Singapore Co-Creation Platform (JSCCP)"
Under strong collaboration with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and Singaporean government agencies, ICMG leads the planning and operation of this platform as its secretariat. Going beyond a mere business matching forum, it organically integrates the "advanced technology and assets" of major Japanese corporations with Singapore's "innovation ecosystem." Based on relationship capital built on national trust, we continuously support the strategic creation of projects to co-create next-generation industrial foundations.
3. Collaboration with the University of Tsukuba: Student Entrepreneur Support Program
A practical program that transforms the "invisible value" of dormant research seeds in universities into world-class entrepreneurial spirit. During a 3-to-5-day travel period, students strategically iterate pitches to top local investors and engage in discussions with potential customers, rigorously questioning "whose problem" and "what specific problem" their technology solves on a global scale. This initiative brings "talent" that often remains buried in regional Japan into the global spotlight. It focuses not on overcoming weaknesses, but on sharpening a stage where individual, overwhelming "strengths" can shine. Starting with Tohoku University and Sendai City, this initiative has now expanded to the University of Tsukuba and other regions across Japan, serving as an "awakening ground" for next-generation leaders stepping onto the world stage.
4. Strategic Partnership with the United Nations (UNDP)
We signed an MOU with "UNDP GCTISD," the United Nations Development Programme's hub in Singapore. We established a mechanism to reframe the pressing social challenges faced by Southeast Asian countries as "business opportunities" to be solved by the technologies of Japanese companies. Rather than leaving the SDGs as abstract goals, we co-operate a Global Innovation Hub to socially implement them as sustainable businesses, achieving both social impact and economic value.
Conclusion
The 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Singapore is a crucial turning point where the partnership between our two nations transitions beyond "support" and "cooperation" into a phase of "co-creation"—building a shared future.
Furthermore, the co-creation experience in Singapore does not end locally. Japanese technology and strengths, reframed in a global context, will bring new perspectives to domestic business strategies and the resolution of regional issues. Designing this entire round-trip process is the endeavor we wish to practice together with you moving forward.
The network ICMG has built across the public, private, and academic sectors since taking root here in 2011 is not merely a collection of informational contacts. It is living "relationship capital" designed to visualize the "invisible value (intellectual capital)" held by Japanese companies and universities, translating it into concrete businesses on the world's fastest proving ground.
If you are looking to leverage Singapore's ecosystem to accelerate new value creation, let us take that first step together with ICMG.
▼ ICMG Group Global Ecosystem Building Support
Email: hello@icmggroup.com (Attn: Hada, Ogawa)
About ICMG Group
ICMG Group is a business co-creation partner for Japanese companies that delivers solid results through co-creation with diverse stakeholders by visualizing the invisible value of a company's intellectual capital that does not appear on the balance sheet.
For more than 25 years since its establishment, the Group has been providing services in Tokyo, Singapore, Bangalore, Abu Dhabi, Nairobi, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Stockholm, including intellectual capital evaluation, which is the source of corporate value, strategy development based on such evaluation, execution, leadership development, business investment, venture capital We are committed to creating results for Japanese companies by co-creating with our clients in a comprehensive manner, including M&A, UI/UX design, engineering, recruiting, and the establishment and management of joint ventures.
We have also established a joint venture in Singapore with Tokyo Electric Power Company and Chubu Electric Power Company to invest in renewable energy and next-generation infrastructure, and have entered into a partnership with the United Nations UNDP on SDG innovation. In venture capital, we have co-invested in India with top global VC firms such as Sequoia Capital, Google, and Tiger Global Management, etc. In 2023, ICMG Digital will accelerate innovation in society by connecting the paths and visions of the management of Japan's largest companies with the power of digital technology. ICMG Digital, which will accelerate innovation in society by connecting the paths and visions of the management of Japan's largest companies with the power of digital technology.
The core value of the ICMG Group, which has created such diverse value, lies in its Intellectual Capital Management, which has always visualized the invisible value of companies and organizations, envisioned their future vision (Purpose), and realized their value creation.