At her private clinic, psychologist Ooi Sze Jin caps her schedule at about four clients a day – not due to low demand, but because seeing more would compromise the quality of care.

Each of her sessions lasts about 60 minutes. But beyond that hour is another stretch of work: reviewing case notes, planning interventions and writing up documentation. 

"One client session can take closer to two hours of work in total," the founder of mental health social enterprise A Kind Place said.

Earlier in her career and at a previous workplace, Ms Ooi saw up to nine clients a day, a pace she described as exhausting. 

"If a therapist does that every single day, they will burn out. And they cannot be the best therapist because their minds are already clouded." 

Even though therapy fees can run into the hundreds of dollars per session, much of that does not translate into take-home pay. 

"It doesn't go all to us … we have to pay our staff, rent, marketing," she said, noting the overhead costs of running a practice. 

Across the system, the pressures look different but are just as challenging. 

Having worked in hospital, primary care, and community and prison settings, senior counsellor Roxanne Koh said that demand for mental health care services has risen sharply in recent years.

She is a senior counsellor at Filos Community Services, a community-based social service agency that provides subsidised mental health support outside the hospital system. She also runs her own private practice. 

In community care, clients often present with multiple, overlapping issues, from mental health conditions to caregiving stress, financial difficulties and social isolation. 

These require not just counselling, but coordination with families, social services and healthcare providers, Ms Koh said. 

"In hospital and community mental health settings where I have worked, counsellors rarely do just counselling."

Counsellors often provide accessible support for emotional and relational issues, while psychologists draw on their more specialised clinical training to assess, diagnose and manage more complex conditions. 

Ms Koh said that counsellors in these settings also take on case management, crisis response, outreach, and significant administrative work alongside direct clinical hours. 

She added that no single part of the work is overwhelming on its own, but the combined demands could leave little time for reflective practice, which she described as a structural matter rather than one specific to any single organisation.

Ms Koh and Ms Ooi's experiences reflect how structural issues, high overheads and a shortage of mental health professionals are among the constraints that Singapore must overcome as it ramps up mental health services to meet rising demand from a population increasingly mindful of its mental well-being. 

Across the board, clinicians and experts said that demand for mental health support has risen sharply in recent years, especially after COVID-19. 

This was driven by greater awareness and life stressors, with more people seeking help and presenting with increasingly complex needs.

The 2024 National Population Health Survey found that the prevalence of poor mental health was the highest among younger adults aged 18 to 29 years, at 25.5 per cent. 

However, one academic said that increasing the number of mental health professionals is not an overnight process, given the time required for training and honing their skills in practice. 

Professor Tan Bhing Leet, director of the health and social science cluster at the Singapore Institute of Technology, also said that expanding the mental health workforce is not simply about increasing numbers. 

It is ensuring that practitioners have the clinical experience and supervision needed to deliver effective, evidence-based care as well.

If workforce expansion prioritises numbers over supervision and competency, it could dilute the quality of the services rendered, she added.

An imbalance may also occur, where lower-income service users with chronic mental health conditions face longer waiting times, compared to self-paying service users who can afford services in the private sector.

The next phase of Singapore's mental health strategy will need to focus on strengthening training capacity, supervision pipelines and retention, to ensure the system can expand in a sustainable and coordinated way, she said.

Associate Professor Sharon Sung, from the health services research and population health programme at Duke-NUS Medical School, said that there have been some improvements to the cost of therapy, but the current model in Singapore serves some groups better than others. 

"Insurance coverage for mental health remains limited, and many policies still do not cover therapy costs. As a result, fees are largely paid out of pocket by patients." 

Furthermore, she said that providers of mental health services face high fixed costs and limited capacity, leaving little room to scale up or reduce their fees. 

WHY RAMPING UP THE TALENT POOL IS NOT SO EASY

Mental health conditions span a broad spectrum, so care needs to be delivered by a range of professionals, noted Prof Tan. But the workforce has not grown quickly enough to keep pace with demand.

In a 2023 parliamentary reply, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said the median waiting time for a new subsidised appointment was 42 days for psychologists and 45 days for psychiatrists.  

A CNA report in March also noted that Singapore is facing a shortage of psychologists amid rising demand. 

To address this, MOH plans to expand the workforce, including increasing the number of public-sector psychiatrists by about 30 per cent to 260 and psychologists by about 40 per cent to 300 by 2030. 

To increase the pool of psychologists, new training pathways have also been introduced.

MOH worked with the Ministry of Education and the National University of Singapore (NUS) to recently launch an accelerated pathway that lets eligible undergraduate students in the university's Concurrent Degree Programme in Clinical Psychology complete their training in five years instead of the usual seven. 

The new structure follows a three-plus-two format, with three years of undergraduate study followed by a two-year master's programme.

The first intake will be in August this year.

Earlier this month, Nanyang Technological University and public healthcare group NHG Health introduced Singapore's first work-study clinical psychology pathway. 

The Applied Specialist Psychology Integrated Residency Education is a structured, stackable three-year programme that culminates in a master of psychology (clinical) degree, allowing trainees to earn the degree over three years while working.

Even with new training pathways, however, public-sector expansion is bottlenecked by limited clinical placements and supervision capacity.

Prof Tan said that a key component of training qualified professionals is clinical placements or internships, but there are constraints on the availability of clinical placements for students. 

Clinical supervision entails an experienced therapist regularly checking in with a junior therapist or trainee, discussing their cases, and guiding them to ensure patients are cared for safely and properly.

"Clinical supervision requires senior clinicians who are already stretched due to the increased demand for services," Prof Tan said 

This can create pressure on mental health service providers, as senior clinicians balance supervisory responsibilities alongside the delivery of care to a growing number of clients, she added. 

Assistant Professor Anne-Claire Stona, who leads the global mental health programme at the SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute, said that the bottleneck is not just a Singapore problem. 

"This is a global challenge – no country can train enough specialists to meet the rising demand."

As such, the “ideal future” for Singapore is not simply having more psychologists, but embracing a more diverse range of providers, she added.

They include frontline workers to deliver basic psychosocial support in everyday settings where people live, commute, work and interact, rather than relying on an exclusively medical model.

HOW TO BALANCE QUANTITY AND QUALITY 

As Singapore tries to expand access to therapy, supply is only half the equation. 

Experts and mental health professionals told CNA TODAY that quality can slip if growth outpaces training and supervision. 

Ms Liew Shi Min, director and clinical psychologist of Heartscape Psychology Clinic, said: "If we focus only on volume, we risk diluting the very thing that makes therapy effective: the quality of the therapeutic relationship and the depth of clinical thinking."

She added: "We ought to invest heavily in curating and developing clinicians and trainees, rather than scaling quickly," 

Regulation will have to be stepped up at the same time, experts said. 

Right now, counsellors and psychologists are not regulated by the authorities. Only psychiatrists, who are medically trained doctors, are regulated by the Singapore Medical Council.

This makes it hard for the public to verify the quality of care they are getting, especially when they are already distressed.

Prof Tan said that it can be hard for patients to tell whether a therapist is properly trained, because beyond Singapore university programmes, there are many private or overseas courses with titles that include terms such as "counselling" or "mental health". 

"For a layman, it is hard to discern if these courses consist of the necessary curricula and clinical training hours to produce competent mental health professionals."

Prof Tan added that in the absence of legal safeguards to protect clinician titles, anyone who sets up an independent mental health service can call themselves a "therapist", "counsellor", or "psychotherapist".  

Last year, an investigation by The Straits Times found several unqualified individuals, including someone describing themselves as an "ordinary teenager", offering counselling services on online marketplace Carousell.

Dr Priscilla Shin, founder and clinical supervisor at Range Counselling Services, said that as the sector expands, stronger regulation is important, so that clinical terms such as "attachment-informed" or "systemic" therapy are not just buzzwords, but refer to actual standards of care backed by supervised experience. 

She also said that clearer benchmarks for training and ethical practice would professionalise the field and reduce burnout, by ensuring that therapists are not pushed into complex cases without the right clinical infrastructure and support. 

Dr Ong Mian-Li, a clinical child and adolescent psychologist who runs Lightfull Psychology, his own practice focused on neurodiversity, described the need to expand the talent pool as a "catch-22".

"We need a lot more people trained, but it takes a lot of time to train people."

He noted that questions remain about what levels of qualification are enough and how, under a future registration framework, the public will be able to distinguish between different training routes and feel confident about the quality of care they pay for.

To further strengthen mental healthcare services and ensure patient safety, MOH is working towards registering psychologists in Singapore, focusing on those who provide direct care and are involved in higher-risk assessments and interventions. 

In response to queries from CNA TODAY, MOH said that it will register psychologists in five high-risk psychology sub-disciplines: clinical, clinical neuropsychology, counselling, educational, and forensic psychology. 

They will be registered under the Allied Health Professions Act 2011 to keep to high standards of practice and ethics. 

The registration schedule, requirements and roadmaps will be ready by early 2027.

There are no plans to register counsellors currently, MOH added. 

As of now, psychologists can join the Singapore Psychological Society, which has at least 870 members, but there is no official registry for the profession, just a voluntary one. 

Registering with the society's Singapore Register of Psychologists lets a psychologist use the title "Registered Psychologist (Singapore)" and it signals to employers and the public that they meet the society's required professional qualifications and code of ethics.

In response to queries from CNA TODAY, the Singapore Association for Counselling noted that without formal regulatory standards, it is incredibly difficult for members of the public to discern and select credible counsellors. 

Making such standards mandatory "ensures that practitioners have the necessary training and ability to provide ethical care", the association said. 

The regulations would also strengthen the profession by committing counsellors to "a continuous journey of professional improvement, clinical development and industry relevance" throughout their careers, it added.

Dr Karen Pooh, a clinical psychologist at her eponymous practice, agreed that, in addition to the lengthy training required to become a psychologist, the work is emotionally demanding. 

"Without sufficient systemic support, retention becomes a key challenge," she said. 

"There is rightly a strong emphasis on patient-centred care in the public sector.

"However, for the system to be sustainable, there also needs to be a greater focus on supporting clinicians."

Clinicians also stressed that quality control is not a one-off checkpoint at graduation. 

Psychologists require continuous clinical supervision, training and professional development to maintain safe and effective practice.

To remain on the Singapore Psychological Society's Register of Psychologists, practitioners must complete at least 60 hours of continuing professional development every two years.

Ms Liew of Heartscape Psychology said that ongoing professional development is not cheap.

At a minimum, psychologists pay for clinical supervision, training workshops and professional membership fees, which can total about S$800 to S$4,000 a year on average.

"Continuing education is very expensive here in Singapore," Ms Ooi said. She often compares rates for continuing education between Singapore and Malaysia.

"For us to upgrade ourselves, getting certified for one assessment here can cost close to S$3,000. In Malaysia, it might be a similar rate, but in ringgit, so it's about one-third of the price."

Ms Ooi explained that the high cost is probably because there are not enough qualified psychologists here to conduct certain training, so trainers have to fly in from other countries. 

She herself values continuing education and encourages her employees to take up courses overseas, which are often more affordable. This way, the high cost of training is not passed on to the client.

"If you want to stay up to date, to be the best psychologist you can be and keep up with the research, advances and new therapeutic techniques, you basically have to do continuing education every year," Ms Ooi added. 

MOH said that it has introduced the National Mental Health Competency Training Framework to standardise quality, training and competencies for mental health professionals such as counsellors and psychologists.

"This framework outlines the skills and knowledge required to address diverse mental health needs under the Tiered Care Model, enabling individuals and employers to identify training requirements," it added.

The Tiered Care Model categorises mental health services into four tiers depending on the severity of clients' mental health symptoms, or the needs and intensity of interventions required.

For those who rely on the public healthcare system, subsidies offer them some relief, but not enough. 

MOH said that at clinics under the Community Health Assist Scheme (CHAS), patients seeking mental healthcare receive subsidies of up to S$500 yearly for mental health conditions listed in the Chronic Disease Management Programme (CDMP). 

Patients can also use their MediSave for outpatient mental health treatment under the CDMP, up to the withdrawal limit.

This is capped at S$500 or S$700 a year, depending on the complexity of the patient's chronic condition. 

From January 2027, the withdrawal limits will be correspondingly raised to S$700 and S$1,000. 

Prof Tan said that schemes such as CHAS, MediSave and Healthier SG initiatives help to contain out-of-pocket spending, but many mental health services, especially therapy and rehabilitation, still require significant co-payment. 

Thus, families can face a significant financial burden when a condition affects a person's ability to work, she added.

Asst Prof Stona said that cost remains a key barrier to access, and argued that a crucial next step is to expand insurance coverage and reform reimbursement models beyond medication alone, to include psychotherapy and other evidence-based interventions as well.

HOW MUCH SHOULD THERAPISTS BE PAID?

At the same time, some experts said that there may be reason to look at having stronger "retention levers" in the mental health sector workforce, including easing the financial pressures these professionals face. 

Mr Gerald Boh, the clinical director at counselling and psychotherapy provider MindsHeart, noted that early-career clinicians may have lower income while bearing "high training and supervision costs", which can undermine long-term retention.

Professionals in the public sector are typically paid a monthly salary. 

As of April this year, the Ministry of Social and Family Development and the National Council of Social Service updated the FY2026 Skills and Salary Guidelines for the Social Service Sector, which provide benchmarks for job roles in the sector.

For associate counsellors and counsellors, the recommended monthly pay ranges from S$3,970 as a starting pay to S$5,590 as a reference point.

For psychologists, the monthly pay starts at S$4,620 with S$5,790 as a reference. 

As for private practitioners, the S$200 they typically charge for an hourly session suggests that these professionals are well-paid. 

However, as mental health professionals in private practice told CNA TODAY, the fees represent a balancing act. They have to ensure client affordability while covering the real costs of delivering care and sustaining a practice. 

Assoc Prof Sung of Duke-NUS Medical School said the session fee is not the therapist's salary; what clients pay reflects many hours of unseen work outside of the therapy hour. 

Furthermore, after accounting for overheads such as supervision, professional development, insurance and administrative costs, "actual earnings are often much lower than people would assume", Assoc Prof Sung said. 

"Running a therapy clinic is nuanced," Ms Liew of Heartscape Psychology said. "To provide high-standard, thoughtful, ethical and seamless care is costly." 

She added that therapy is not a high-volume model, and the profit margins are often more modest than people think. 

Agreeing, Ms Koh said: "Private fees aren't just a number; they reflect a real cost structure, and often, practitioners may not be earning as much as the headline rate suggests." 

Dr Nisha Rani is clinical director at the Centre for Psychotherapy (C4P), a Singapore-based social enterprise established in 2003, which provides evidence-based psychotherapeutic services. 

It reinvests its resources to support subsidised care alongside specialised programmes with government and community partners.similarly said that the "visible hour" does not reflect the full scope of practice. 

The principal psychotherapist said: "With every client, it's about one hour of solid thinking and understanding. The brain is in use totally for that one hour." 

Dr Nisha said her staff members try not to go beyond three clients a day each, because of the cognitive load and the need to reset emotionally between sessions.

These economics explain why pro-bono and sliding-scale care are hard to scale. 

Dr Nisha and her colleagues sometimes take a "very low pay cheque" so that they can see more clients on a pro-bono basis, and that fees from those who can pay help to fund the care for those who cannot.

Even then, she stressed that capacity is finite, because quality relies on manageable caseloads and sustained supervision.

On the point of affordability, it is not a simple public-versus-private divide; there is a broad spread even within the private market.

Ms Antoinette Patterson, co-founder and chief executive officer of mental health platform Safe Space, said that many people assume therapy is unaffordable because they see only the top end of private fees. Safe Space offers a range. 

The digital platform helps users find and book counsellors, psychotherapists and psychologists, with sessions offered online and in person across different price tiers.

Pricing starts as low as S$30 and goes up to more than S$280 a session.  

Lower-priced sessions may come from trainee counsellors, retirees or practitioners who offer therapy as a second career or a form of giving back to society, Ms Patterson said.

But even tiered pricing does not solve affordability for everyone. "Unfortunately, for a lot of the clients, they can't afford it, no matter what price point that it comes at," she added.

For example, for clients who have been laid off work, getting food on the table becomes the priority, and pursuing such therapy is a luxury.

The platform has been exploring how government grants might help offset costs for such clients. 

Ms Koh said: "Over time, I've come to see that counselling, however well-delivered, is not enough on its own."

For these services to be effective, they need to be supported by strong referral pathways, accessible services and a well-coordinated ecosystem, she added.

"That is also why I continue to be committed to community mental health – because it allows us to work not just with individuals, but with the broader systems that shape their well-being." 

Whenever the question of "Who wants beer?" is uttered at Ms Jazlyn Koo's family gatherings, the public relations manager knows that a crate of Tiger Beer cans will be brought out soon.

"If you wanted something else, you'd have to ask for it," the 32-year-old said.

It's a similar story across the island: Come evening at coffee shops across all corners of Singapore, bottles of Tiger inevitably come out to rest on granite tables and beer buckets adorned with the familiar feline roaring before a palm tree. 

For many Singaporeans such as Ms Koo, Tiger Beer has always been an iconic brand intimately associated with their small nation since it was launched by Malayan Breweries in 1932. 

So naturally, strong reactions sprouted on social media when news broke of its production being offshored to Malaysia and Vietnam, and that its 36-year-old Tuas brewery would be phased down progressively by the end of 2027.

"It feels like we've now lost another piece of what we can truly call ours," Ms Koo said.

To be exact, Tiger Beer has been under the stewardship of Heineken for more than a decade, as the Dutch giant acquired full control of Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) Singapore in 2012.

Mr Kenneth Choo, managing director of Heineken Asia Pacific, had said in the announcement of the offshoring on Mar 24 that "Singapore will remain the home of Tiger Beer, and we will continue to invest in its future".

While negative sentiments online were in part due to the cutting of around 130 job roles over the next two years, people also questioned the extent to which Tiger Beer can still be considered "Singaporean".

Some asked, with a hint of sarcasm, for instance: Does the tourism icon Merlion need to be stationed here for it to be a Singapore icon?

How can Tiger be a Singapore beer if it is produced elsewhere?

Barely a week later, Yeo Hiap Seng, the maker of Yeo's beverages, said that it would consolidate its can manufacturing to Malaysia, laying off 25 employees in the process. 

Established in Singapore in 1938, Yeo's first made its name in the domestic market through its soy sauce, and in the 1950s, it diversified into other products such as canned curry chicken, bottled soy milk and other Asian drinks. 

The announcements by two Singapore icons made back-to-back led some people to wonder: "Which Singapore brand is next?" 

Dr Samer Elhajjar, senior lecturer from the department of marketing at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School, said that this discomfort is a rational response.

"Brands are part of national memory and industrial identity. When an iconic brand stops producing locally, people are not only mourning a beverage or a can line. 

"They are reacting to the sense that another piece of everyday nationhood has become more abstract," he added.

"In small states especially, brands often carry outsized symbolic weight because they are among the few globally visible artefacts of national identity. So the discomfort is cultural, economic and psychological all at once."

Similar discussions and concerns about losing heritage brands have arisen before, such as in 2005 when Raffles Holdings, which owned Singapore's iconic Raffles Hotel, announced it was selling the hotel to United States-based Colony Capital, along with a portfolio of 40 other hotels and properties worldwide, for S$1.72 billion, or around US$1.05 billion at the time.

The hotel has since changed hands again and is now owned by Qatar's Katara Hospitality and managed by France's Accor.

In 2008, the much-loved Robinsons Department Store was bought by the Al-Futtaim Group of Dubai for S$600 million, or around US$410 million at the time.

More recently in 2025, Malaysian retail group Macrovalue acquired Cold Storage Singapore, the nation's oldest supermarket chain, and Giant supermarket in a deal worth S$125 million.

However, Singapore brands and experts believe that ownership, and production for that matter, are just two of several factors that make a brand "Singaporean" – and that its roots can be preserved in more ways than one.

SINGAPORE BRANDS AS NATIONAL SYMBOLS

There is no single formula for a brand to chart its path to becoming a Singapore icon, of course.

Even then, Dr Elhajjar said that a brand is strongest as a national symbol when it is born, made and owned or controlled in Singapore.

Once one or more of these layers are peeled away, the brand does not automatically stop being Singaporean, but its "Singaporean-ness" becomes more symbolic and less tangible.

"That is why Tiger can still feel Singaporean even if production moves, and why Yeo's can still feel Singaporean even as part of its manufacturing footprint shifts. 

"In both cases, the origin story still matters, but origin alone is not enough," he added.

Take Raffles Hotel, for example. The establishment possesses a storied history dating back to 1887, when it was established by Armenian hoteliers, the Sarkies Brothers, on the same Beach Road site where it remains today.

Within its elegant colonial-style exterior, luminaries such as Charlie Chaplin, Michael Jackson and Queen Elizabeth II have spent nights in its lavish rooms throughout the decades.

The hotel was gazetted as a national monument in 1987 on its centennial, even though its significance as a Singapore icon never really needed to be debated.

Its sale in 2005 and subsequent acquisitions may have muddied that status slightly, but despite foreign ownership and an expansion of Raffles-branded hotels to 24 properties internationally, experts said that its identity as a symbol of Singaporean colonial heritage remains largely unblemished.

Mr Mark Pointer, chief executive of Superbrands Singapore and a specialist in media and brand communication, said: "The global renown of the Singapore property is so significant that it serves as the foundational pillar for the brand’s entire international marketing and positioning. 

"In essence, the global brand has been constructed around the heritage of the Beach Road original. Across all digital and physical touchpoints, it is always presented as the 'North Star'."

Mr Pointer said that its management has done so by thoughtfully exporting famed features unique to the Singapore experience to every other property around the world.

"For instance, the hallmark of personalised butler service – a tradition born here – is now a non-negotiable standard globally.

"Similarly, the concept of the 'Long Bar' has been integrated into its international locations, ensuring that while the geography changes, the distinct 'Raffles' atmosphere remains anchored in its Singaporean roots." 

What about Tiger Beer? Even though the brand has not been Singapore-owned for more than a decade, people still associate the pale lager with the Little Red Dot.

After all, it has deep roots here. 

Born in 1932 out of a deal between Singapore company Fraser & Neave and the Dutch Heineken in the wake of World War I, it was the first ever beer to be brewed locally and quickly dominated the Malayan beer market before being exported internationally. 

Associate Professor Seshan Ramaswami of marketing education at the Singapore Management University (SMU) said that even after the latest announcement, Tiger Beer will likely continue to be seen as a Singapore brand for the foreseeable future.

"Not many may know that the brand was acquired by Heineken through its acquisition of APB in 2012. And not many may care, I suspect."

He added: "For almost a century, Tiger has been connected to Singapore. That connection, in the minds of millions of beer drinkers worldwide, will mean more than the outsourcing of production to other countries … (if it) does not change the taste of the beer perceptibly."

Having said that, a brand can still lose its iconic status over time. Take the case of Robinsons Department Store, founded in Singapore by Philip Robinson and James Gaborian Spicer back in 1858.

The descent and eventual shuttering of the once-beloved shopping destination occurred under the Al-Futtaim Group, which took over in 2008.

Sentiments at the time of Robinsons' exit suggested that the new owners of the iconic retailer did not understand the Singapore market well and failed to maintain its relevance to Singaporeans. 

For instance, an author for a Singapore fashion blog, Style on the Dot, wrote after the closure of its last Singapore stores in 2020: "The way many see it, Robinsons has (ceased) to be a Singaporean brand the way we remember it when Dubai-based Al Futtaim Group bought (over) Robinsons & Co in 2008.

"Although the company did grow the Robinsons brand in the Middle East – in Dubai and Riyadh – there is no emotional connection to the brand or the appreciation of Robinsons' place in the social, economic and retail history of our city."

Indeed, Dr Elhajjar from NUS Business School said that in cases of foreign ownership of a brand, big decisions about its future may no longer be made with Singapore in mind, thus diluting its "Singaporean-ness" in the process. 

"Over time, the priorities can shift from serving local customers, employees or communities, to serving shareholders or markets overseas," he added, though he did not refer to the Robinsons case specifically. 

"The brand might still look Singaporean on the surface, but the choices shaping it day‑to‑day are no longer rooted here."

However, Assoc Prof Ramaswami from SMU said that Robinsons' demise may also be because department stores are a "dying format across the world", and so it is difficult to attribute foreign ownership as the sole reason for Robinsons losing its relevance to Singaporean shoppers.

DOES LOCATION MATTER AT ALL?

Ownership of a brand is one thing, but does the manufacturing location still influence the product's national identity? Perhaps not. 

As Assoc Prof Ramaswami pointed out, many of the world's best-known brands have long moved their production away from their countries of origin. 

American sports giant Nike manufactures most of its shoes in Asia, Sweden's Ikea has production hubs for its furniture all around the world, and the list goes on.

Furthermore, while the offshoring of Tiger Beer and Yeo's is notable, it is not unexpected.

The moves are part of a broader pattern in traditional, high-volume and lower-margin manufacturing sectors such as food-and-beverage and consumer packaged goods, the Singapore Manufacturing Federation (SMF) observed. 

The federation's president Lennon Tan said: "The cost differential for land, labour, utilities and logistics between Singapore and our regional neighbours, especially Malaysia and Vietnam, has widened considerably in recent years.

"That makes it increasingly difficult for companies to justify large-scale commodity production here." 

What this means is that Singapore will likely see more companies adopting the "hub-and-spoke" or "Singapore+1" model, where firms retain their headquarters, brand management and research-and-development (R&D) functions domestically while relocating volume production to lower-cost hubs. 

It is a model that the government has encouraged with the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone, for instance.

Similarly, both Tiger Beer and Yeo's have stated that they will continue to have a Singapore presence despite their respective offshoring plans.

For Tiger Beer, Heineken said that it will build customer and consumer functions here to support key import markets, and build on its global GenAI Lab located here to support productivity and decision-making across the world.

Yeo's said that its Senoko facility will continue to serve as the company’s headquarters, cross-border logistics hub and smaller-scale manufacturing centre.

So with such production structures increasingly commonplace, Assoc Prof Ramaswami said that what makes brands identifiable with their country of origin is consistent design and branding practices. 

Still, some would argue that location and brand identity are closely intertwined.

Dr Elhajjar said: "People will start asking – if it is no longer made here, employing people here and embedded in daily industrial life here, what exactly remains local besides the logo and the story?"

INTANGIBLE TRAITS CAN DEFINE BRANDS

Nostalgia aside, as brands change ownership and redraw lines of production, one should also ask whether the intrinsic link to a product's country of origin is a good thing in the first place, or if there is any real value in preserving those roots.

Mr Jorg Dietzel, an international brand consultant who taught in SMU for two decades, believes that there isn't a blanket answer to the question.

"It goes back to positioning. What does the brand stand for, and does the country of origin contribute something?"

The Singapore brand in itself invokes sentiments of cleanliness, no-nonsense efficiency and service – a narrative that brands such as Singapore Airlines would do well to maintain close associations with, Mr Dietzel said.

In such cases, brands with strong roots in their home nation should continue preserving them even if it offshores production or is acquired by a foreign entity.

Otherwise, pinning an entire brand strategy on national identity may backfire.

"You can control inherent values. But if you're too dependent on secondary, 'outside' values, it could become dangerous," Mr Dietzel said.

"If a strong aspect of your brand is American-ness – for example, for Coca Cola or McDonald's – you could face challenges and even potential boycotts if the US is criticised politically." 

A number of homegrown firms interviewed by CNA TODAY said the "Singapore brand" represents more than that, and that it helps to shape their brand's identity even as they venture abroad. 

Homegrown furniture brand Castlery recently announced that it would open its first brick-and-mortar store in the US city of New York, and its co-founder and president Declan Ee said that the brand's design philosophy came about as a result of the small nation: small spaces, practical living and making products work across different life stages.

"Singapore's limitations became our design brief, and that brief travels," he added. "In our sector, customers don't simply buy a sofa because something is 'from Singapore', they buy it because it works for them." 

Preserving a brand's cultural roots also provides an advantage in a world where "many brands look interchangeable," Dr Elhajjar from NUS said, because "roots create trust, distinctiveness and cultural depth". 

Food retail chain Old Chang Kee, for instance, said that its Singapore "DNA" gives its brand authenticity and is what differentiates the business in markets such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the United Kingdom.

"This is best expressed through our signature Curry'O (puff). It brings together diverse culinary influences – spices rooted in Indian cuisine, shaped by Malay and Chinese interpretations into something that is now distinctly Singaporean," the company said.

Furthermore, just mentioning that a brand is "from Singapore" has also helped to open doors for smaller businesses. 

Ms Melinda Sutikno, founder of women's activewear brand Anya Active, said: "When we expand into markets like Indonesia, the 'made in Singapore' signal carries real weight.

"It stands for quality standards, credibility and a certain level of intentionality in how we build things." 

MAKING BRAND HERITAGE TANGIBLE

When a Singapore brand expands overseas, the smarter approach would be not to insist that everything must stay "local". 

Instead, it should ask which parts of the brand's identity should remain anchored at home, Dr Elhajjar said. 

"Brands can preserve roots by keeping high-symbolism functions in Singapore – brand leadership, strategy, R&D, design, archives, flagship experiences or limited-edition production." 

They should also try making the heritage tangible, in the form of museums, cultural collaborations and public-facing experiences, he added.

Some international brands have done this well. 

Guinness, for instance, is brewed and sold across the world, yet it still feels inextricably Irish because of what Dr Elhajjar called a strong "cultural anchoring".

Its advertising leans into Irish pub culture, music and communal moments. 

And the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, one of Ireland's most visited attractions, keeps the beer's origin story physical and present.

Then there is Lego. It is global, yet still unmistakably Danish because the country remains central to the toy giant's design philosophy, narrative and institutional identity, Dr Elhajjar said.

Its headquarters have stayed put in Billund, Denmark, where visitors may go on guided three-day tours around the home of Lego founder Ole Kirk Kristiansen. 

The brand's visual language remains clean and functional, and its business decisions prioritise long-term quality over short-term trends, he added. 

"All of this signals stewardship, restraint and responsibility, which align closely with Nordic cultural values."

In an example closer to home, Dyson moved its global headquarters to Singapore in 2019, but it has never let go of its British identity, Mr Pointer from Superbrands said. 

Its Wiltshire campus in England remains the brand's spiritual home, housing R&D facilities that double as monuments to engineering obsession, such as a Harrier Jump Jet in the car park and a Lightning Jet hanging from the cafe's ceiling. 

The Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology, also in the United Kingdom, ensures that the next generation of engineers is trained where it all began.

Ultimately, for marketers and academics, the matters that make a brand truly Singaporean are questions of strategy and positioning. 

For ordinary Singaporeans though, they are rather more personal.

Till today, whenever Ms Koo hears someone ask "What's the time?", her instinct is still to respond in jest that "It's Tiger time!" – the tagline of a particularly memorable advertising campaign from the 1980s.

She said this is perhaps why she feels sentimental that the pale lager will no longer be brewed here.

"I do feel it's a bit of a waste given how iconic Tiger Beer is to Singapore. That said, I also get the commercial reality behind the decision," she added.

"I'd rather it survive and stay relevant, even if it’s not brewed locally."

Tiger Beer remains a fixture at coffee shop tables and family gatherings across the island for now. But whether it remains of Singapore, in any meaningful sense, is a question that its drinkers are only starting to sit with.