Singapore

positioned to emerge as a clear leader and beneficiary of several significant opportunities, the requirements of which make our nation a natural ideal candidate. Five of the most pertinent of those are briefly discussed below.

1. Environmental

One inadvertent byproduct of the coronavirus disease 2019 ( Covid- 19) tragedy is the realization of how beautiful our natural world is, and how quickly visible pollution vanishes with lower activity. This in contrast to the devastation some of nature’s underlying forces can bring if unconstrained.

Surely, the ensuing economic recession will present challenges to some of the climate change initiatives embarked upon recently. Nevertheless, regardless of these setbacks, many emphatically believe that sustainability- related investments will continue to double every three to four years over the next few decades. At least one- third of such investments, envisaged to amount to hundreds of billions, will be in Asia.

Singapore is ideally placed to become the Asian catalyst providing advisory, financial, logistical and innovation support for activities such as carbon sequestration, waste management, pollution control, water-related and many other similar initiatives. Singapore is already a leader in waste management and water treatment.

If we can support the right skills development and encourage the creation of the prerequisite institutional framework, sustainabilityrelated industries have the potential to become one of the top three sectors for the Singapore economy in the next decade.

2. Education

Geopolitical and ethnic tensions from Covid- 19 and increased protectionist policies are going to result in more intra- Asia exchanges going forward.

Coupled with rising costs and lower purchasing power, these could lead to reduced demand for long-distance, overseas education for students from Asia. Singapore universities and our relevant skills-rich talent pool are well placed to offer a combination of online-offline framework which is likely to emerge as the norm and preferred platform for providing education for future generations. The focus should be on acquiring relevant skill-sets. Through their improved reputations and rankings, as well as lower price points, universities should be able to compete with all but the most prestigious Western universities for Asian students seeking an overseas education. Universities and polytechnics should aggressively work to improve and refine their online and remote education offerings given some greater reluctance or inability to travel post- Covid- 19.

Singapore could look at enhancing its potential offerings as a host country by looking to combine complementary elements from its tourism infrastructure and partnerships with global universities.

3. Health care export zone — for regional customers

During the Covid- 19 crisis, when most health care services around the world buckled under pressure, Singapore has provided examples of the highest attainable standards of medical professionalism and system resilience.

It is crucial that we maintain a dedicated health care infrastructure for our local population and protect it from any possibility of degradation in service level. For this reason, a distinct and separate “export” medical services zone could be created to cater for regional high-end customers seeking the best-in-class medical treatment.

Such zones would be designed and created at designated locations complete with supporting complementary elements to include hospitals and short- and long- term residence for visiting patients and for convalescence.

Aside from overseas patients seeking regular treatment at such facilities, an enhanced service for those requiring unfettered access could be made available through paid subscription to a medical concierge service. This could act as a “one-stop-shop” to facilitate all the necessary arrangements such as repatriation, transport booking of accommodation, hospital beds and appointments with specialists etc.

In the best-case scenario, dozens of hospitals, dedicated hotels and serviced apartments could be built, with a varied range of plans, “insurance-like,” on offer. Attaching complementary benefits from retail outlets, telecommunications providers etc. could be packaged to provide a compelling high-end product which could attract tens of thousands of high-paying customers from around the region. We will be able to create a good number of jobs for our citizens for the whole supply chain.