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Singapore has offered to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in 2030, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said on Saturday (Nov 16).
APEC continues to be an important platform for economic cooperation and the 21 member economies collectively make up nearly half of global trade, Mr Wong said at the close of this year’s summit in Lima, Peru.
“Singapore regards this as an important grouping, not just for trade and investment, because APEC also serves as an incubator for ideas around other areas of cooperation, like supply chains, digital economy and sustainability,” he told reporters.Singapore will do its part to support APEC in different ways, including the hosting of APEC Summits, Mr Wong said.
“We have offered to host the APEC Summit in 2030,” he added.
The last time Singapore hosted an APEC Summit was in 2009.
WORLD AT INFLEXION POINT
When asked about his takeaway from the Summit this year, Mr Wong noted that there was “widespread recognition” that the world is at an inflexion point.
“There are powerful forces that are shaping the trajectory of events in the coming years,” he told reporters.
Given growing geopolitical rivalry and tensions, Mr Wong noted that more things are being viewed through a security lens, rather than through win-win economic cooperation.
He added that there is a sense that citizens and people across many economies of APEC feel that free trade has not benefited them, and that not everyone is getting a fair share in the progress of their respective economies.
“And so there is, across the board, a concern that support for globalisation and trade is weakening,” he noted.
“Of course, what can we do about this? One response would be to simply put up more barriers, but it is good that the APEC economies across the board reject that response, and feel that the right way to go about dealing with these concerns is to double down on our trade and investment links, make sure that trade works for the benefit of all our peoples, and find ways to make growth more inclusive.”
CNA
