Engineering consultancy firm Witteveen+Bos continues its international expansion. It is taking a major step forward in South-East Asia with the opening of a new regional office in Singapore.
Being particularly strong in the water sector, the regional office was opened on June 3, 2014, during the Singapore International Water Week (SIWW) in the presence of the director for the Centre of Liveable Cities in Singapore, Mr. Khoo Teng Chye and the Mayor of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Mr. Ahmed Aboutaleb.
Witteveen+Bos South-East Asia Pte Ltd will primarily target opportunities in the fields of drinking water, (industrial) wastewater, environment, sustainable urban development, ports and deltas.
Witteveen+Bos has been active in Southeast Asia for nearly forty years. Initially the company mainly operated in Indonesia, where it opened an office in 1978. The regional market has grown considerably in the past decades, which is one of the reasons why the company has decided to establish a new regional office in Singapore. The new office will be headed by Arno Kops, the company’s regional manager for Southeast Asia.
Engineering consultancy excellence
Despite the economic downturn in Europe, Witteveen+Bos produced its best financial result ever in 2013; a confirmation of the appreciation of its clients for the engineering excellence provided. Witteveen+Bos was awarded majority of iconic engineering consultancy projects in the Netherlands last year, among which the covering of the southern ring highway in Amsterdam Zuid and the coastal protection study of the Afsluitdijk.
It was also awarded prestigious projects abroad, such as the Sharq Crossing tunnelling project in Qatar and Water Management Master Plan in Bangladesh and the National Capital Integrated Coastal Development project in Jakarta, Indonesia. Providing engineering consultancy excellence is Witteveen+Bos most well-known trademark. Witteveen+Bos will therefore target iconic projects in South-East Asia.
Highly educated
Striving to also become a top class engineering consultancy firm in the region, Arno Kops has no intention of just simply importing Dutch expertise. He plans to attract local, highly educated engineers to work for Witteveen+Bos: ‘We believe that exporting Dutch expertise by posting Dutch employees abroad is not cost-effective in the long run. We have to focus more on local expertise and sharing our knowledge. We can only remain a truly top-class firm by attracting the best engineers in a favourable labour market,’ says Arno. ‘The Singaporean population is highly educated. The National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University are awarded high scores in various international performance rankings. In addition, the country offers a high level of legal certainty and transparency.’
Challenges
‘In Southeast Asia, our professional engineers can offer solutions to challenges in many fields, including delta technology, coastal engineering, flood defences, land reclamation, urban planning, ports, hydraulic engineering, transport economics, and household and industrial wastewater. We are able to help develop comprehensive solutions that tick all these boxes, as evidenced by our contributions to the master plans for Jakarta (Indonesia) and Beira (Mozambique). These plans cover more than just flood defence measures – they also address improvements in urban planning, mobility, water supplies, and water quality.’
Lasting relationships
Witteveen+Bos believes in lasting relationships with employees, collaborators and clients. Lasting relationships with clients are created by providing them with engineering consultancy excellence. Our employees are our assets, and therefore Witteveen+Bos provides extensive personal development opportunities for its employees. For example, new employees will go through an intensive in-house training program which turn fresh grads into engineering consultants, able to provide value-added advice to our clients.
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