Wee Bin

Wee Bin was an early Singapore Chinese businessman with a prominent career as a merchant and ship-owner.

Wee ran a prominent trading and shipping business during the 1860s. His company, Wee Bin and Co, which was located at Market Street, started off by establishing relations with businesses in Bali in the Dutch Indies. It soon became the greatest importer of products from Bali. It also traded in earthenware and manufactured sago. Over the years, it built up a fleet of over 20 vessels serving the Chinese and Dutch Indies trade. Wee's company was in general a sign of a visible trend in Singapore towards the latter half of the 19th Century, in which a large number of Chinese merchants, majority of Hokkien descent, became successful ship-owners. In a survey conducted in 1866, 56 out of 178 vessels registered in Singapore belonged to Chinese at that time.

Besides Wee Bin and Co., Wee also had a short-lived partnership with his brother-in-law, Kiong Seok Wee, the son of fellow merchant Kiong kong Tuan, who established the shipchandler company, Joo Chin and Co.

A hardworking man who led a strenuous life in which he devoted much of his time to his rapidly expanding business, Wee died in 1868 at the age of 45. After his death, his company continued to flourish under his son, Wee Boon Teck, and later under Boon Tecks son, Wee Siang Tat. By the end of the 19th century, Wee Bin and Co. had grown to become one of the largest Chinese shipping firms in Singapore.