Built to think beyond: Why Nordic firms are deepening ties with Singapore to fuel their Asian growth

Nordic companies are used to looking beyond their home markets.

Like Singapore, the Nordics are small, open economies whose companies often have to internationalise early, compete on quality and build trust across borders.

That outlook helps explain why established Nordic companies such as the LEGO Group, Neste, Pandora and Yara increasingly run global operations from Asia and continue to deepen their presence in Singapore. The opportunity is significant. A 2025 joint report by Bain & Company and NielsenIQ projects private consumption across major South-east Asian economies to grow by 8 per cent annually to nearly US$5 trillion by 2035. The region is also poised to become the world’s fourth-largest economy within the same timeframe.

For them, Singapore is not only a point of entry to growth in Asia but also a trusted hub to build capabilities and manage market complexities associated with the region.

Singapore sits at the nexus of two kinds of flows: consumer flows that enable companies such as LEGO Group and Pandora to stay close to Asian customers as they grow in sophistication, as well as the goods and logistics flows that enable business-to-business (B2B) companies such as Yara and Neste to orchestrate their regional and global operations.

From here, Nordic companies find a stable and transparent operating environment, the right talent and capabilities to manage regional businesses, and an enterprise and innovation ecosystem that is accessible to Asian markets.

LEGO: Talent as a catalyst to create, innovate and scale

The LEGO Group first opened its Singapore Hub in 2013.

Today, the office has grown to more than 500 people and taken on capabilities that go well beyond a regional headquarters - spanning commercial strategy, the Creative Play Lab, and global supply chain and procurement.

The key to that expansion is access to talent.

Claus Kristensen, Senior Vice-President for Asia-Pacific at the LEGO Group, says developing people is central to building the group's capabilities and competitive edge.

So, the group invests in capability development across domains and levels, through both local and global programmes to help employees build skills and grow.

What sustains this investment is Singapore's ability to continuously attract, develop, and retain top talent – a deep pool that the LEGO Group draws on to support expansion in Asia, while building capabilities in product innovation and creative functions.

Mr Kristensen points to Singapore's predictable operating environment and its network across government, industry and academia as important considerations for companies making long-term investments. “That mix allows our teams to collaborate, innovate and make decisions faster."

This ecosystem not only helps develop and retain talent, but also sparks ideas and drives LEGO's regional businesses.

Neste: An enabling ecosystem to turn sustainable aviation fuel ambitions into reality

With Asia-Pacific representing the world’s largest aviation market, Neste chose Singapore as a base to build its sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production, innovation and regional supply-chain capabilities to capture a piece of the market.

Growing air travel demand through Singapore, combined with its strong connectivity networks to Asian and global markets, made it a natural choice for Neste to locate SAF capabilities here.

The Finnish renewable fuels company started its Singapore refinery in 2010 in what was its first significant investment in Asia. Initially spanning 19 hectares, it has since more than doubled in size after a S$2.3 billion expansion in 2023.

Singapore’s policy direction provides greater certainty for the SAF market. As Singapore moves ahead with its Singapore Sustainable Air Hub Blueprint, producers like Neste can look forward to greater demand visibility. The Blueprint puts in place mechanisms to aggregate demand, support procurement and build the infrastructure needed for continued investment.

Beyond manufacturing and supply chain capabilities, Neste has also expanded its innovation footprint in Singapore. In 2023, the company opened its Asia-Pacific Innovation Center at Singapore Science Park - its first research and development (R&D) facility outside Finland. This places the company alongside other research-intensive firms in the Park, as well as Singapore's public research institutes that give access to specialised scientific talent.

Pandora: Proximity to consumers enables greater market agility

Pandora’s 2025 decision to establish its Asia headquarters in Singapore after being in the country for 10 years reflects the group's greater ambitions in the region and the diversity of its markets.

Singapore now serves as the group's regional base to accelerate growth across Asia and allows it to centralise regional functions that were previously managed out of Australia. The decision is part of wider plans to sharpen focus on growth markets such as Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia.

Having a Singapore base also allows it to deepen its understanding of the fast-growing consumer markets in Asia, where tastes, channels, and consumer behaviour differ sharply.

Regional insights captured in Singapore are fed back into Pandora’s wider business, including its designers in Denmark and manufacturing operations in Thailand. This closes the loop between what Asian consumers want and what Pandora designs and produces globally.

For Thomas Knudsen, Pandora's Managing Director for Asia-Pacific, four factors underpin Singapore’s appeal: strategic location, business stability, a multicultural workforce and access to retail talent.

For a consumer brand like Pandora, the capacity to read and respond to local demand quickly, while coordinating strategy centrally, is increasingly important in giving the company an edge over competitors and supporting its expansion.

Yara: Open innovation enables solutions to scale across Asia and Africa

For Norwegian crop nutrition company, Yara International, Singapore's role has evolved from a trading base into a platform for open innovation and regional growth.

Yara's presence in Singapore dates back to 1995, with Singapore as its Asia headquarters and, in 2020, the base from which it steers its Africa and Asia business. Singapore's role expanded further in 2024, when Yara selected it as the headquarters for its global innovation platform, Thryve Innovation CoLab (Thryve).

Mr Luis Alfredo Pérez, Executive Vice-President of Yara Africa and Asia, stressed the importance of Singapore as a hub: “This concentration of capabilities gives us a clearer view of market differences, enables stronger partnerships, and helps us scale relevant solutions across the region.”

Thryve puts this collaborative approach into practice by bringing together start-ups, corporates, research institutions, and government partners to co-develop, test, commercialise, and scale solutions for food security, climate resilience and sustainable agriculture.

Using Singapore as a launchpad, Yara aims to create two-way innovation corridors between Singapore and other key cities, helping solutions move from pilots to real market deployment for tangible impact across global food systems.

Choosing a base for future capabilities

Choosing a base is not only about where to establish a first presence, but where businesses can anchor themselves for the long term and evolve as their needs change.

The common thread across the LEGO Group, Neste, Pandora, and Yara is that their Singapore operations have deepened over time as business needs evolved. That growth is underpinned by what Singapore offers companies making long-term regional investments: stability and trust to plan with confidence, coupled with the talent, connectivity and innovation ecosystem to evolve as business needs and market conditions change.

For Nordic companies known for quality, innovation, sustainability and long-term thinking, Singapore is not just a point of entry to Asia, but a base from which to keep building.