SINGAPORE: Singapore's Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said
pragmatic and courageous leadership is needed to meet global
challenges ahead, and key among these challenges is tackling the
impact of climate change.
According to a survey, this is a priority among participants at the
East Asia meeting of the World Economic Forum held in
Singapore.
But besides the environment, Mr Goh is concerned that the world is
not doing enough to prepare for an avian flu pandemic.
Giving his address at the close of the two-day forum, Senior
Minister Goh said leadership is the mother of all factors that
would see Asia through the coming years.
This would then allow the region to achieve the vision of an "Asian
century".
He said: "If you categorise governments into the good, the bad and
the ugly, track the economic growth of their countries and try to
make a correlation, you will discover there is a positive
correlation between the good-high growth, the bad-so-so growth and
the ugly-negative growth in these countries."
Pragmatic policies by leaders in countries like China, India and
Singapore have been critical in sustaining economic growth.
Mr Goh said: "From time to time we will sit down, look at the
horizon and decide what steps we must take to adapt ourselves to
the future. We had our own thinking on certain matters, for
example, casinos. Seeing how competitive other economies are, we
asked ourselves what we could do for the future.
"We do not favour gambling, but we decided on the integrated
resorts because you can tie in the casino with convention
facilities to support larger activities. That's an example of
pragmatic leadership in Singapore."
Organisers of the World Economic Forum did a survey amongst their
participants to find out which are the leaders' top priorities over
the next few years, and it was of no surprise that issues like
global warming, climatic change and environmental policies topped
the agenda.
In a session with leaders from the private sector, the senior
minister was asked if climate change would still be a concern if
there were to be a SARS outbreak at the same time.
Mr Goh said: "I think the survey reflects the flavour of the month,
which is climatic change. But at the back of my mind is the fear of
an avian flu pandemic. I think we are not doing enough to tackle
the problem and we are not ready for it not just in Asia, but in
the rest of the world."
Mr Goh also urged the private sector to let governments know about
the pro-business conditions needed in a country to benefit both
businesses and regional economies.
- CNA/so
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Besides what are stated above, what about pragmatic and unselfish
leadership to take good care of the needs of the people of
Singapore in the ever constant rise in the cost of living of
Singapore to meet the global challenges?
