World Economic Forum calls off meeting in Singapore 

By Ivan Lim
Former AJA President, Contributor to AsiaN

SINGAPORE: Singapore is facing a fall-out at the international level because of the new near-lockdown measures it imposed to cope with a surge in Covid-19 cases.

The World Economic Forum has called off its special annual meeting scheduled in the city-state in August.

WEF founder and executive chairman Professor Klaus Schwab, said: “It was a difficult decision, particularly in view of the great interest of our partners to come together not just virtually but in person and to contribute to a more resilient, more inclusive and more sustainable world.

“But ultimately, the health and safety of everyone concerned is our highest priority.”

In its statement yesterday, the WEF did not specifically mention the Singapore’s worsening Covid-19 outbreaks. As of Monday, the financial hub had 149 new community cases.

Instead, it spoke of the “tragic circumstances across geographies, an uncertain travel outlook, differing speeds of vaccinations roll-out and the uncertainty around new variants continue to make it impossible to realise a global meeting with business, government and civil society leaders from all over the world at the scale which was planned.

“This is despite the excellent support provided by the government of Singapore.”

Will Singapore ‘the Switzerland of the East’ still be chosen to host the special annual meeting the WEF said it plan to hold early next year.

In its statement, the WEF said it would assess the situation and decide on the final location and dates for the meeting later in the year.

The WEF traditionally convened its special annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, and Singapore was supposed to be its first Asian host.

In response to the WEF change of plan, the Ministry of Trade and Industry said the government fully appreciated the challenges caused by the ongoing global pandemic.

The high-profile meeting, set to address the post-Covid-19 challenges and the Green Economy had been rescheduled from end of May to August 17 to 20.

In another disruption from the Covid curbs, Singapore-and Hong Kong have decided to suspend a bilateral air travel bubble for a second time. Under the air travel bubble agreement, passengers would not be required to serve quarantine or stay-home notice. It is an effort to boost airline traffic between to the two pandemic-hit cities.

But for the sudden spike in Covid-19 outbreaks, the travel bubble would have taken off on May 26.

This would be so, if the moving average of community cases does not exceed a threshold of five in a week. But in the past week, Singapore had seen an average of six cases.

The air travel bubble was originally to be launched on November 22 last year. …

Despite these setbacks, Singapore has been cheered by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) decision to hold the 19th Shangri-la Dialogue on June 4 & 5 as planned

“This underscores the strong commitment of government leaders in addressing security challenges even in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said the Ministry of Defence.