New Horizons: What’s Next for the Region and the World?

The SIIA’s New Horizons series kicked off on 19 August 2020, Wednesday with a high-level roundtable discussion on “What’s Next for the Region and the World?” where we examined how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the region and the world and what economic recovery looks like moving forward.

Opening the series were Mr Tan Chong Meng, Co-Chair of the Emerging Stronger Taskforce (EST) and Group CEO of PSA International, Mr Peter Ho, Senior Advisor, Centre for Strategic Futures, Strategy Group, Prime Minister’s Office, and Dr Michael Taylor, Managing Director for Moody’s Investors Service and Moody’s Chief Credit Officer for the Asia Pacific region, who shared their perspectives on the post-pandemic economic outlook.

The SIIA then convened a roundtable discussion among speakers and business leaders where they agreed that many of the challenges and trends, which include geopolitical tensions between China and the US, increasing demand for online services and the need for diversification of supply chains, now affecting the world were already at play before the pandemic. They were merely exacerbated or intensified during as a result of the pandemic.

The New Horizons series was started by the SIIA to support the Emerging Stronger Taskforce (EST). As knowledge partner of the EST, the SIIA will convene a series of closed door roundtable dialogue sessions involving business leaders from different industries to examine the future of Singapore’s economy as well as identify opportunities for growth. Topics will include discussions centered around key ASEAN economies – Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam – as well as infrastructure of the future.