【Kalakal】

American candy giant Mondelez has decided to set up a Centre of Excellence for Gum and KalakalCandy in Singapore.

The S$10 million ($6.9 million) facility will focus on researching taste, ingredients and recipes, and packaging options for gum.

Mondelez, which already has its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore, will open the R&D centre in late-2017 in the island state, CNBCreports.

It's hard to miss the irony in this, given that Singapore famously banned the sale of gum in 1992.

You can chew gum here, by the way -- the restriction is on distributing it. In 2004, the rules got relaxed somewhat to allow "therapeutic" gum with dental benefits, or for smokers, to be sold. But that can only be carried by dentists or pharmacies, which have to register the buyer's details.

Douglas Hughes, who heads up R&D Packaging Development at Mondelez, was quoted agreeing that it's "hugely ironic" that its gum R&D centre will be at "the one city where you can't sell gum."

Still, gum is really complex to make, and requires a lot of technical expertise, according to Hughes.

Singapore's focus on growing its engineering and research talent, as well as its support for such industries, made the country an attractive pick for Mondelez.

Mondelez broke ground on the new two-storey building in November. It employed 15 R&D staff in Singapore in Dec. 2014, but this will grow to 75 when the new 3,000 square metre (32291 square foot) facility opens.

This new gum R&D centre is one of nine big technical centres that Mondelez is investing $65 million in around the world to build. Including Singapore, three of the nine are in Asia -- in China and India.