Tharman Shanmugaratnam

“Global stability is like oxygen for the economic system. You don’t realise you need it when you have it.”

“As someone who has spent a good part of my life as an economist working with models, they’re not going to be very useful.”

The regulated space, especially in the Wild West, may not be the best assurance for relying on crypto or capital markets

Still, Tharman doesn’t see cryptocurrencies replacing money as legal tender given their volatile and speculative nature.

These are the news highlights this week.

Cryptocurrency trading in Singapore remains small compared to shares and bonds.

Interest rates are expected to rise in tandem with climbing US rates, which may increase debt servicing costs.

“We need a new capitalism — a more fair, a more just and a more equitable capitalism,” says Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.

Distribution of vaccines will be a “huge challenge,” Tharman said Monday at the Singapore Summit virtual conference.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the retreat of globalisation have widened the financial fortunes between developed and emerging economies. Does it mean the end of an era of supercharged catch-up growth for EMs?