Singapore urges APEC to look after region's poor

Singapore urges APEC to look after region's poor

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has urged fellow Asia-Pacific leaders meeting here this week to explore new economic growth models that will benefit the poor, summit documents showed Monday.

Lee, host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, said in a letter to the group's 20 other leaders that APEC had to "explore new growth paradigms" and make sure that "benefits are spread wider to our people."

"We will be meeting at an important moment in the global economy," he said in his letter, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

"While signs of recovery have emerged, the outlook remains uncertain. It will be a bumpy ride," the prime minister said, referring to the worst economic crisis to hit the global economy since the 1930s.

"But even as we focus on sustaining the recovery, we need to look beyond to prepare our economies for the post-crisis landscape. It cannot be business as usual."
Lee said the leaders, including US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao, must also "take our efforts to integrate the region to the next level," including better land, sea and air links.

He said economic growth must benefit more people within the region.
"Growth that is inclusive and broad-based will also help strengthen the consensus for trade and investment liberalisation," he said in an apparent reference to protectionist sentiment among sectors fearing foreign competition.
"We could discuss the structural adjustments that we need to better prepare our economies for globalisation, for example, through upgrading our workers and developing our SMEs (small and medium enterprises)."

Social safety nets designed to help those affected by the global slump and by future crises need to be discussed to "help the more vulnerable segments of our societies," he said.

Singapore has one of the world's highest per capita incomes, and APEC's other members include rich nations such as Australia, Japan and the United States.
But the group also counts Papua New Guinea among its members along with Indonesia, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, where a large number of people still live in poverty despite economic growth.