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