Honeywell Asia Pacific, the regional arm of the United States electronics conglomerate, plans to move its regional headquarters to Singapore from Hong Kong in the next three months.
The move would help Honeywell, the world's largest manufacturer of automated electronic controls, take advantage of the 'support infrastructure' it had in place in Singapore, the company said.
Birte Sebastian, Honeywell's Singapore-based corporate communications manager, said the headquarters had fewer than 10 employees - including the president and executive staff - so the move would not 'have a great impact on overall employee levels in Hong Kong'.
She said the Singapore office already included operations such as human resources, communications services, treasury and engineering. The move was made to bring Honeywell's headquarters staff closer to these back-office operations.
'It was not a choice between Singapore or Hong Kong. We made the move because we felt it would be too complicated to continue splitting up the operations,' Ms Sebastian said.
Honeywell has about 550 employees in Singapore and 300 in Hong Kong, she said.
Honeywell's move highlights Singapore's attempts in recent years to attract Asian subsidiaries of foreign multinationals.