Opening Address by Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Vivian Balakrishnan at the Investment Management Association of Singapore Investment Conference & Masterclass 2026, 7 April 2026

1         Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here. I must start by confessing I feel like an imposter. I’m a retired ophthalmologist, an eye surgeon. I have never run an investment firm.

2         I will start by quoting former President, Dr. Tony Tan. I have never forgotten one of our side discussions in Cabinet and his advice: “Take care of the downside; after that, everything else is upside”. I am afraid that I am the “downside” guy today, and I’ll be quite happy to be wrong, because if I am completely wrong, it means all of you are going to have lots of upside. But in that spirit, let me at least give you my perspectives, and I will do so hopefully as succinctly and robustly as possible.

3         I want to start by just giving you three points to bear in mind. First, we are now in a far more violent and volatile world. Second point which is underlined by ongoing events in the Middle East is that choke points and physical delivery still matter in the world. So, you can have derivatives, you can have investments, all kinds of packages; but choke points, physical delivery, still matters. My third takeaway I want to leave with you is that you should never believe that you can be an insulated, isolated oasis of calm and stability if your region is aflame.

4         Let’s get on then with putting some meat on this structure, and in particular, I will come back to the theme on Asia, because after all, you selected this theme before current events, before current headlines, and I think that still is salient.

5         The first point, why is the world more violent and more volatile today? There are various ways of answering the question. The trite answer is: it is the end of the old world order of the last eight decades. The new world order has not yet come into focus. The most dangerous phase is the interregnum, the transition from one old world order into a new world order. Basically, we now live in a world, in which, to quote the late American international relations scholar Louis Henkin, his observation – and now I am referring to the old world order – was that “almost all nations observe almost all principles of international law and almost all of their obligations, almost all of the time”. You notice the recurrent ‘almost’. Today, fewer nations are observing fewer principles of international law and complying with fewer of their obligations. If you look at the behaviour of big powers, and even of the major powers today, there is less inhibitions. In fact, today there is even no need for hypocrisy. They take a narrower definition of their national interests, shorter time horizons, and simply say, I want that. And the old proscriptions against force or the threat of use of force no longer apply. It is not just the superpowers or the major powers, but once that paradigm sets in into geopolitics, every country which feels it is bigger, stronger, or has leverage, will use that leverage to secure its immediate and short-term advantage. So that, in a nutshell, is why we are now living in a more violent, more volatile phase in history.

6         The next point is about choke points. What is happening now and over the next 12 hours is a perfect illustration of why choke points matter and why physical delivery matters. In fact, it is also related to changes in military technology. I know there is a lot of attention focused on the Strait of Hormuz, but in fact, if you cast your mind back to the last couple of years: even a non-state actor, an armed militia was able to interdict flow through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. And you do not need to sink every ship that passes. You just need to sink enough so that the investment managers, and importantly, the insurance brokers, say, “I will not cover shipping insurance”. That is enough to shut down a waterway. Today, we are watching the Strait of Hormuz. Again, it illustrates that even a relatively weaker military power is able to do enough to shut down not just physical flows, but insurance coverage, and therefore you have a problem. In particular, with respect to Asia, the fundamental difference between now and the earlier bouts of Gulf Wars in 1991 and 2003 is that today, more than 80% of energy flowing through the Strait of Hormuz is not headed to America – that 80% is Asia. So, the epicentre of the dislocation and the disruption from that choke point is Asia, and we all are dealing with the implications of that.

7         My third point relates to the role of Singapore and to the prospects for Asia, that we are now an interconnected world. Events occur at the speed of light, and if you have not checked your phone in the last three seconds, you are out of date. I think it is important even at this time to take a longer term view, and I want to focus in particular on Asia. If I were to ask you to rank countries or regions in nominal GDP terms, you will still say number one is the United States. If you add up all the member states of the EU, in fact, number two is the EU, slightly ahead of China, number three. And then you start looking down the list, and you know that India has been making steady progress. I think they are already at number five, if not four. But the other sleeper hit in Asia is ASEAN, Southeast Asia. If you add up our cumulative GDP, we are getting closer and closer to the US$4 trillion mark. The US$4 trillion mark is significant because that is where India, Germany, Japan, are. The point is, we have the potential to be one of the key cylinders firing away for the global economy. So, I state that as a potential. The next question you have to ask yourself is, what are the prerequisites if this potential is to be fulfilled for Asia? After all, you think about that ranking I just gave you. Asia means China, India, Southeast Asia, and we are definitely going to be in that top league. But what are the prerequisites if we are to fulfil our potential? Number one, we need peace and stability within Asia and across the Pacific. You can have the best architecture, the best minds, the best infrastructure, the best functioning markets, the best investors or investing managers. But if we cannot sustain peace and stability in Asia, we will not fulfil our potential. That is almost a trite point.

8         Second thing which we need in Asia is to double down on our regional integration. This is partly a reminder now underlined by choke points. But if you think about Asia, there is still a lot more that we can do to double down on intra-ASEAN trade and investment flows. A lot more we can do on infrastructure and connectivity within both Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia, across the Indian Ocean to India, and beyond that, Africa and South America. I am making the point that there is, in fact, a lot more that we can do and should do on regional integration.

9         And of course, since the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Assistant Managing Director Gillian Tan is here, I should emphasise when you talk about connectivity, it also refers to digital, fiscal and monetary connectivity. For instance, Singapore has spearheaded cross-border instant payments connectivity, and now we have Project Nexus that makes it easier for other countries who want to come on board, rather than to have a whole series of bilateral arrangements to come on board a system – a platform, with common standards, and to connect to our instant payment system, which I believe will spread across Asia. That is just one example.

10         We have also developed a new and innovative development financing platform such as the one called Financing Asia’s Transition Partnership (FAST-P), which is a blended finance platform to support regional infrastructure and sustainable financing needs. Another example, we are making progress on the ASEAN Power Grid, and again, I do not need to remind the audience now about the critical importance of resilience in power supplies, of accelerating renewable energy sources throughout Asia, and also making sure that there is an ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement, which we have settled, and to also upgrade the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA). All this is work in progress – some of it complete, waiting for implementation. But my point is, all this promotes post-crisis prospects for Asia.

11         Now, having said that, I want to end by talking about the importance of multilateralism. It is true, multilateralism, and it is epitomised by the United Nations (UN), the Bretton Woods Institutions, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organisation (WTO), are all, in a sense, on life support. But do not put it in the coffin yet, because, in fact, what the world needs is reformed and functioning multilateralism. And the reason we have to do that is because we are small. We will never be a major military power. We do need to seek safety in numbers. We do need to ensure that even small city states and small countries have a voice, and therefore, we do need to support the UN; we do need, wherever possible, to insist on operating on the basis of the UN Charter. And to keep this concept of working collectively to protect the global commons, by which I mean areas like climate change, dealing with pandemics, both the threat and potential of AI, and even the use and exploitation of outer space, another arena of the global commons. Even right now, there is a new space race going on, and some people who are tired of watching missiles in the Middle East will be watching Artemis too, for instance. But actually, even that is part of a contest. It is still worth our while to support multilateralism. I am glad that last week, a group of countries in the Future of Investment and Trade Partnership, we call this FIT-P for short, issued a joint statement to refrain from trade restrictive measures and to coordinate measures to respond to major supply chain disruptions or risks. Basically to tell people, look, I know things are getting a bit hairy, but do not panic. And it is still worthwhile operating by international law, by rules, and it is still worth your while to respect the sanctity of contracts, because how you behave in a crisis has got profound impact on your standing, and in fact, to your prospects after the crisis is over.

12         So, let me conclude. Asia has got great potential. But if we do not get the basics right, we will not fulfil that potential. Number two, the recent events, in fact, show that Asia is very vulnerable, and not just the things we fail to do or do within Asia, but events remote from Asia. And therefore, finally, the more we can be realistic, the more we can take care of the downside, the better we will be able to harvest the upside. I’ll stop now and be happy to put myself in Avril Hong’s hands for what I hope will be a robust discussion. If there is still time for questions from any of you, I’ll be happy to take questions uncensored. Thank you all very much for your attention.

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