Antara's leading journalists soon saw a need for the agency to establish additional branches outside Jakarta. Sjahroedin, a former editor at Dōmei, opened one of these offices in British Singapore in February 1946. The branch received no funding from the newly formed Indonesian government and was housed in a three-story building in Raffles Place. Its goal was to "break the Dutch or Allied monopoly on news about Indonesia", especially when local British authorities did not recognize Indonesia as an independent government.