15 September 2008: Bernama
By Zakaria Abdul Wahab
SINGAPORE, Sept 15 (Bernama) -- Singapore says the world needs to evolve new international frameworks for cooperation that can effectively stave off potential global and regional economic conflicts in the decades ahead.
Government of Singapore Investment Corporation deputy chairman Dr Tony Tan said the current international system for conflict resolution had been eroded by the recent lack of coherent international leadership from developed economies.
The post-World War II and United Nations-centered institutions and fora were also biased towards developed countries, Tan told the International Institute for Strategic Studies' 50th Anniversary Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, yesterday. The text of his speech was released here Monday.
Tan said over the coming decade emerging markets were expected to eventually account for more than half of global growth and this could pose several implications.
He said the emerging economies would displace the G-7 as the worlds largest economies over the next two to three decades even if per capita incomes still lagged behind those of the developed economies.
Tan said the economic trends of the last 25 years had been broadly benign but the coming decades could be more challenging such as the return of inflation and higher oil and commodity prices.
He also said significant stagnation and inflation risks suggested that challenges and potential conflicts arising from both protectionism as well as resource nationalism could seriously jeopardise globalisation of production and markets.
Countries that were reliant on imports of commodities, such as China, could be more aggressive in their pursuit of predictable supplies of food, oil and raw materials.
Countries like Venezuela, Iran or Russia could use the supply of scarce energy as a diplomatic weapon.
"We have already seen this vividly in recent weeks and could well see it again in coming years," Tan said.
He said conflicts within and between countries over commodity-rich disputed territories whether in the Spratlys, Iraq or the Niger Delta might intensify often with grave global consequences.
Some food-producing countries might limit exports to safeguard domestic supply, further worsening global food scarcity, he said.
The consequences of such adverse developments would be exacerbated in an environment of food and energy-led inflation which would hurt the poorer populations of developing countries more than the comparatively richer populations of developed countries, Tan said.
He said unless international frameworks for cooperation and global management of scarce food, energy and water resources were developed in time, the potential for conflict and political instability could rise.
At least the current multilateral international institutions as well as their reform to include major emerging economies as key stakeholders should be strengthened, he added.
-- BERNAMA
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