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(Bloomberg) – America’s political and economic interests in Southeast Asia won’t change regardless of who wins the November presidential election, Commerce and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing said Thursday night.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the Singapore Summit virtual conference, the minister said the United States is committed to peace, security and economic prosperity in Asia and will need to continue working with partners to secure its own interests.
“What I think people are concerned about is the stance towards China, and what concerns us are not issues that have to do with personalities, it is whether there will be a fundamental misunderstanding between the establishment on both the Chinese and American sides,” he said.
Responding to a question about the impact of the US elections on regional trade, Chan said that regardless of the winner, the next US president will have to work with China to defend a global trading system and security architecture.
“What worries us is that with reduced interaction between the leadership and the younger generation on both sides, then without realizing it, we could have planted the seeds of a future misunderstanding,” Chan said. He called for greater interaction between the two superpowers to understand “where they should work together and where they will compete with each other.”
The Singapore Summit is supported by the Singapore Economic Development Board, the sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte., The Monetary Authority of Singapore and the state investment firm Temasek Holdings Pte.
Here are some other comments from Chan:
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On world trade in the Covid-19 era: “The health crisis will always be a challenge here and now, but I think we have to look further,” he said, then added that “many problems” need to be solved about the World Organization. of Commerce
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“We must not neglect the need for us to establish an architecture for the next generation of growth, and that largely depends on how we design the new rules to provide mutual assurance, security and the free flow of data in the digital realm. “
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On global digitization: “People think that manual workers are the ones at risk and that is because their jobs can be replaced by robots and automation,” he said. “Now, to a certain extent, that’s true, but more and more, I think the world is realizing that the competition is even tougher for administrative jobs that can be done over the Internet.”
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On which industries Singapore will focus on helping to pivot into new markets, he said ICT, financial, medical and precision engineering services are among those that perform well. “In fact, we are going to redouble our efforts to grow and penetrate global markets,” he said. “Today, in a Covid world, we will have a combination of both virtual and live experience, and in Singapore we are pioneers in much of this, what we call ‘hybrid activities’ that combine the physical and the virtual.”
Chan’s comments come as Singapore continues to reopen its economy after a two-month partial lockdown that began in April due to a surge in Covid-19 infections. Those measures have helped contain Covid-19 in the island nation by decreasing the number of new daily infections.
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