Singapore can't avoid next crisis, but it can strengthen its resilience: Heng

Singapore

A GLANCE outside the window of his Shenton Way office at the height of the 2008 global financial crisis was all it took for Heng Swee Keat, then managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, to grasp the extent to which markets and economies around the world were connected.

"I could look into the port," said Mr Heng, who is now Singapore's Finance Minister. "At the height of the crisis, it was a really frightening sight, because normally you would see the cranes moving, and the containers were moving, and there was always a hive of activity. At the height of the crisis, the port looked so quiet, you know? And initially of course, as the older cargoes left, the container stacks became very low, but no new containers were coming in.