 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Adrian Monk, I'm managing director for public engagement at the World Economic Forum. That's great. I hope you can hear me now. And I'm delighted to welcome and introduce the co-chairs for this 33rd World Economic Forum Summit in Delhi. It's taking place under the theme of innovating India, strengthening South Asia, impacting the world. We'll have a chance to hear from each of our co-chairs on their hopes and expectations for the coming two days of the summit. And I'm going to start by introducing the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Singapore, Mr. Heng Swee Kitt. Morning, sir. Can you share with us your hopes and expectations for this meeting? Well, first of all, we are going to put a period of very major changes in the global economy in terms of support for globalization in different parts of the world. In some parts of the world, there is a retreat from globalization. In other parts of the world, there is growing interest in globalization and trying to make the integration in a better global. Mr. Prime Minister, to give you my microphone, because we're not quite picking you up on the microphone. Oh, OK. Is that better? Yeah. OK. Well, let me repeat that. I'm very happy to be back here in India for this economic summit. And we are going through a period of very major changes in the global economy, first in terms of the support for globalization. In some parts of the world, there is a retreat from globalization. In other parts, there is a great desire to integrate our economy better, to have better specialization and division of labor, and to look at how, through that, we can raise the productive efficiency of the resources that we have. Now, so that's one aspect. Another aspect is that we are seeing also a growing inequality, both in terms of wealth and income, both within countries and across countries. And there is a lot of concern about how that itself is supporting globalization. And third, we are also seeing a lot of concern about the impact of economic growth on sustainable development, on the environment. So we are undergoing a period of very major changes in the global economy with a trade friction that shows no sign of abating. And this is a very important time for us to come together to look at what is it that we can do together, given this broader global context, of how South Asia and the rest of the world, Southeast Asia, Asia, and those like-minded countries around the world, can come together to provide support for global integration for the multilateral trading system and for us to tackle many global challenges around the world. And we see very useful topics in this WEF forum. And in particular, this follows on from what the WEF has been doing in raising this issue of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. I think technological changes are also growing at a very rapid pace. And this is going to have significant effects on almost every sector in the economy. What used to be non-tradable are no longer non-tradable. And with e-commerce, for instance, what used to be part of my mom shop could now be part of a global value chain. So we are seeing these massive changes that are happening. It brings a lot of challenges, but also a lot of opportunities. So I'm very happy that this forum discusses a whole range of different topics. And I look forward to learning from everyone in this forum. Thank you. The leader of one of India's biggest health care brands, executive vice chair of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise, Shabana Kamaneni. Shabana, could you share your hopes for the coming two days summit? Well, one is that I didn't want to miss an opportunity of a global platform in India where there are more women co-chairs. The Prime Minister of Bangladesh is not here than men. And this actual inequality, they say, will just is going to equal out probably in 70 years. And I won't be around. In the US, it'll probably take 120 years. So that, for me, was number one. Here was a platform of inequality of women. So happy to do that. The second point is that I think that the topic is so perfect because we're really talking about innovation from India. And people would think that here's a country that has so many other challenges. And why are you thinking of innovation when you should be thinking of other real-level problems to address the inequality of among 1.3 billion? But I think that's where the crux is. That's where the crux is that India will innovate great frugal models that are relevant to the world. And I see nothing more relevant than health care. That's where it's happening that here in India we're able to give health care at a fraction of the cost of the rest of the world. The Aishwan Bharat of the Prime Minister is actually innovating a model where he's 500 million people will get access to health care. And this will have to bring up so much innovation to make it a reality. And from that, India has always been engaged with our region. We've been there in terms of you say, I think health care is the most in terms of diplomacy, a soft diplomacy comes from health care, that we treat people from around the region. And I think more of that can happen that not only can we take our models to the rest of the world, but India will also, through its medical expertise and through some of the technology, what we're working with, the partnerships, international partnerships with global companies. And in this region, so I think that when we really talk about innovation, India has excellent models to be able to take that around the world. And first regionally, and then through the world, while we face challenges, I think many of them will get at least spoken about here. You spoke about some great challenges that are going to take place, so we need to voice that. Thank you so much. Someone who needs no introduction to tennis fans, sports person, and UN Goodwill Ambassador, Sonia Mirza joins us. Sonia, can you share your hopes for this summit in the next couple of days? Well, first of all, good morning, everyone. It's an absolute honor to be here, and I think it goes without saying why I'm here looking at the panelists. I feel extremely privileged to be in this company. I think that I as a sports person can bring, I feel sport has brought so much equality in my life, and I feel that that can be in the next two days spoken about and addressed in many ways where we can actually talk about how sport can bring countries together and improve economy in a certain way. And it's happened in amazing countries. It's happened in China, and it's happened in a lot of other countries. So I really hope that one day we get there, and hopefully we can address those issues. And the second thing that is very, very close to my heart, which I hope to address in the next couple of days, is the equal opportunity for women. It's as simple as that. It's not about the physical strength of being equal to a man. It's about having equal opportunity. Like Shobna Aunty, I call her, but Shobna Ma'am said, she's my best friend's mom. Yeah. So. Please call me Shobna Aunty, sorry. And like she said, it's a privilege. I think equality starts right here. We've got more women panelists than men panelists. So yeah, I really do hope that we can address those issues and actually find solutions because there's so much said and done about equality and equal opportunity. It's just about trying to bring it together and make it happen. Thank you so much. We're talking about innovation. One of the biggest investors in innovation here in India is Sequoia Capital, joined by Shlendra Singh, who's the managing director. Shlendra, what are you hoping to achieve in the next couple of days? First, it's a real privilege and honor to be here. And it's even greater privilege to be in the minority on the panel. So we are very much in the midst of a very significant technology-led transformation. We think it's already happened in the developed world. It's already played out in the US and China. We think it's happening at a very rapid pace in India and Southeast Asia. And it's happening across sectors, as Minister Heng mentioned. And we think the rise of technology over the next 10 years will be pretty transformational. The largest market cap companies will be technology companies. Many of them are still quite young. And it's already playing out that in various different sectors, the young upstarts are the most important and the largest companies in India and in Southeast Asia already. And in this type of an environment, we feel like successful tech companies are going mainstream. And mainstream companies have to become technology companies. Every company has to become a technology company. And from our vantage point, we think the World Economic Forum is a great platform for old, traditional, established, incumbent, profitable businesses to actually meet and engage and learn about innovation from the new upstarts. And we try to invite, along with the forum, several dozen of the new and emerging technology leaders to this venue to essentially engage in dialogue so there's better understanding of how to build a healthier ecosystem together. Thank you. And lastly, delighted to be joined by some company that came out of the first dot-com revolution, booking.com, and their chair, Gillian Tans. Gillian, can you share some of your hopes for this meeting? Yeah. Well, first of all, it's great to be here on this platform today. Also, if you think about the progress that has been made in India in the sector where we operate, India was ranked by the travel and tourism council in the top three, looking at the past seven years from 185 countries from the progress that has been made. We can say that has been improvements that we see in this market. Then, if you look at overall economic growth and the addition of the prime minister to go in five years to a $5 trillion company and to do this through pillars like inclusiveness, innovation, infrastructure, but also international connections. I think it's great that we are all here together. Also, international businesses to see how we contribute to this mission. And booking is a company that really wants to empower people to experience the world. And we really do that to boost local entrepreneurs. And therefore, we bring economic growth. If we connect all of our partners to the digital age, even in India, we have 55,000 partners where we operate with not only big companies, but most of them are small properties, local entrepreneurs. And we really try to create advantages. So we create advantages for these businesses. We create advantages for our platform, for our customers, but also for the society as a whole. And my personal passion is around women and technology and really to help entrepreneurs all around the world to realize their dreams. And with booking, we are very proud of what we have accomplished so far. And there's lots of examples we still see today. Even here in India, we see people that are becoming a local guy to show their destinations. We see people opening up their homes to bring local dining experiences, opening up to stay at their houses. And even a company like Poonja, which is a company called Women on Wheels, who provides taxi services by women to make it more safe for women to take taxis. That's a company that we also support within our booking booster. Gillian, thank you very much. We have time for some questions. If I can get a sense in the room of who has a question, if you could just raise your hand. And if we can ensure that we're on questions for all of our panelists that take in the theme of the meeting, that would be a fantastic way to run this press conference. If you could just tell us your name and your organization before you ask that would be fantastic. And can we get a microphone to the folks with their hands up, please? Thank you. My name is Philip Monnier, representing La Jaffee from Switzerland. I have a question to Mr. Hanswick Kitt. I have a privilege to live in your country for two years, and I was impressed. I think it's a model country, not only in terms of economic development, but also in terms of social, religious, and many other things, developments. So my question is, to which extent do you feel that the success of Singapore can be replicated to other countries? That's a great question. Hi, I'm Sajid here from BloombergQuint. My question is for Mr. Singh. Especially for the private space and startups in India, what are the kind of lessons that you learn from the V-Work debacle? I think very sustainable. Great couple of questions. One on Singapore's model and how applicable it is across South Asia. And secondly, I think looking at the future of the dot com second round with the IPO of V-Work that's taken so much media attention. If I can start by turning to Deputy Prime Minister and just ask you, sir, are there lessons from Singapore that are applicable across the region that you feel, or do you feel that there's things for both sides to learn across this region? Well, first let me, can y'all hear me? Yeah. That's good, yeah. Well, first let me say that thank you for your compliments on our success, but I have to add that one must never take success for granted. We just have to keep running because the changes happen even faster. Now, if I would say that, and I would say that there is a particular model that is applicable across the world, but I would say that there are useful lessons that we ourselves have learned that we can share and that others and we can also learn from others. A one important lesson really is that the economy is very dynamic. There will be constant changes. And over the last 50 odd years of our independence, we have gone through ways and ways of changes. The key is to stay useful and relevant to the world all the time. And at the time when you have many rapid changes that are happening, whether it's in the support for globalization, whether it is in technology and the fourth industrial revolution, or whether it is in educating our people, rescaling our workers, all these major issues which every country will have to respond to. But probably respond to will very much depend on the path that we've taken so far. Economic development is somewhat path dependent. You can't just switch to a completely different path. You just can't switch to a completely different path tomorrow and that we'll have to take and try to get to the right path at the right time. So on that I would say that what we have found to be extremely useful is first being part of a global economy and that's why we are strong supporters of globalization of the multilateral framework and multilateral institutions. But when I was in Doha when the Doha round was launched, but unfortunately we have not made much progress in the Doha round. So what we have done instead is that we want to create opportunities to collaborate with many different countries around the world. So we started a free trade negotiations first with New Zealand and then from there and of course within ASEAN. So the ASEAN Economic Community has been real work in progress. It has grown significantly and beyond that we have also negotiated many free trade agreements from all parts of the world including US, China and of course India. Now the next phase that we hope that we can work together is to continue to build on this RCEP, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. And I hope that India will be a very major player in this. Now this is not to advocate that we should become fortress Asia but rather we should use this to catalyse support for further liberalisation at the WTO. But at a pace which allows our people to respond, to benefit from and this will be one major issue that we can work together. And the other is of course dealing with this, the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Sri Lankan point about the importance of innovation is going to be very important and how do we all work together to support the science, technology and innovation. You see research bodies all over the world doing work, you see corporates doing work on this area. But I think if we can again work together we will all be stronger. And the last point I will make is that since like Shalendra, I'm the one that is, we too are outnumbered by all the ladies and I'm very happy to see that. And I think in many parts of the world we can unleash far better economic opportunities if we empower our women. And in that regard, I would say it's not just about economic growth. More importantly is I think we want to create a system where every person better than the men or women have the opportunity to realise their full potential and to fulfil their aspirations. And here we have three great role models of what they can do to show that women can lead companies, can lead startups and can be great in sports. So thank you. Shalendra, you are also Indian based in Singapore. Are there things that you think Singapore has to offer in terms of models for India and perhaps things that India has to offer in terms of Singapore? And also just to the point made by the other gentlemen, we've seen with some of the oxygen being sucked out of the startup sector by the WeWork experience. We've also had Thomas Kirk, 150 years old, collapsing. What are the implications for the sector you're in? I think I'll answer the first question first, which is to us, technology is transforming all regions. India, South Asia, Southeast Asia and there's lots of potential for collaboration, lots of potential for learning. I've been, just like somebody mentioned, really amazed by the system of governance in Singapore and it makes for a very efficient environment. And I think the Indian government also has sort of made pretty tremendous progress in the last several years with the ease of doing business rankings with some very transformational things like UPI, Aadhaar in financial services and financial inclusion in payments. And I think definitely learnings apply on both sides and there are plenty of examples where there's lots to sort of learn from each other. I think coming back to the question on tech and the WeWork issue, I'm not qualified to specifically comment on WeWork, but I think it's a reminder from afar and so I'm an observer just like everybody else. I think it's a reminder that companies of scale should be built with an enduring company mindset and that businesses should have a, inherently should be built with the view to be sustainable and such and have great governance around them. So I think it's an important reminder. I think lots of very high quality companies are being built in this region and I think some will go through their cycle of ups and downs as they go through it. This process of tech transformation is never a straight line and it goes through some ups and downs because as somebody who's been investing in tech for a dozen plus years, these companies are immensely fast growing and immensely fast changing and there's often no playbook to follow. But I think the principles of enduring companies and the principles of good governance still apply and I think it's a reminder that you have to sort of really embrace innovation by keeping those two principles at the core of how you innovate. Gilliam, booking.com came out of the first.com boom and not every company out of that boom survived. I mean, are there lessons from what your company went through that apply in this round of unicorns and perhaps over excitement? Yeah, so what I've seen at booking with what is extremely important is to keep focusing on customers because customers change and especially if you think about technology, customers also get much more advanced in technology and you need to make sure you keep adapting to the needs of these customers. You need to make sure you keep innovating and we've seen it as well when we are now 20 years old but when all started to arise, that was an interesting moment for a company like booking that basically was founded on only desktop and then to see, okay, can we also be successful with customers that are booking their mobile devices and that are actually traveling with their mobile device and we can have much more of an influence on customers even throughout their journey and be much more of a help and I think that's the journey that booking has gone through and for me, that has been critical to the success that booking is still accomplishing today. Can I just get a sense of the room if we have more questions for our co-chairs? Ladies there and there please and I think, am I gonna have to give up my microphone? I think I am. Let me pass it down to you. I have a question for Minister Heng, please. Rebecca Bundin from CNA. I'd like to ask you about the status and developments of the third comprehensive economic corporation agreement. You spoke quite a bit about trade relations there so I'm wondering if there are any developments that you can share with us? Any kind of progress, any sticking points? Also with regard to these kind of relations between countries in the region, could you talk about your views on current ties with ASEAN and South Asia at the moment? What are the challenges there, please? That is a great question. I'd like to bring in some of our other co-chairs as well so if you can answer the question which can engage our panel, that would be fantastic. Okay, well my question is mostly for, my name is Saheli, I'm from CNBC based in Singapore. My question is mostly for Minister Heng, but I mean, I'd love to hear all of your views too. So Singapore and India has increased its collaboration over the years so much so that Prime Minister Modi has recently said that the relation has gone from one of competition to collaboration. And Mr. Heng, you spoke about how there is growing inequality in terms of wealth and income and how economic growth is having an impact on sustainable development. So can you share your thoughts on what you feel is the future of this India-Singapore relationship and how it can address some of the topics that are of importance to this forum today? Thank you very much. And before I bring the Prime Minister in, the points you raised about inequality are fundamental to I think a lot of the conversations that are gonna take place in the next couple of days. And I just wanted to bring in Shabana and Sanya on that. Shabana, if I can just ask you, inequality underpins a lot of the conversations around healthcare and you as a leader in one of the principal healthcare brands in India have a role to play in kind of addressing that. How do you see that coming up in the next couple of days? Thanks, Adrian. I'm going to actually anchor your question into something that you spoke about India and Singapore. And one of the exciting things is while Singapore is looked at is the Innovation Hub, a lot of Singapore companies look to India and its population to see how they can commercialize it first. So while, and some of us house our companies outside and Singapore being the first destination. So I think there's a lot of collaborative in terms of the innovation and the models coming up. And I can tell you in healthcare, we've had many companies from Singapore that innovated in Singapore, but said, look, we can't commercialize, we can't take it to scale. Could you please incubate it within the Apollo hospital system? And I think that's a model that will increasingly start in many areas. And one I'd like to particularly point out is that when Singapore came to us, you know, IE of Singapore came to us and said, we have a lot of small companies that are interested in this smart cities, but we've really missed the bus into some extent with all the big consortiums. But we have people who can think about doing smart villages and smart rural hubs. So you're looking at Singapore, which is probably an island city nation, you know, all about a city and you're trying to take this out into the rural areas. And I think these are very exciting. The thought process that we can actually think these things through across the sea, across the country. So innovation would come from many of these ideas and partnerships. And Sonia, you travel across the region, you're a goodwill ambassador. What is your experience in looking at lessons that the region can kind of draw on across the different examples in terms of tackling inequality? Well, I mean, I think that if it comes actually to Singapore funnily enough, it used to hold the biggest ornament that the WTA ever had, which I happen to win twice actually. So which is why I personally love Singapore. But I think, you know, I think that said a lot in terms of innovation that we were talking about to bring tennis to a region in Asia, which is not necessarily known for tennis. We're more known in Asia for other sports. And I think that these are the steps that are taken. And you know, now obviously that tournament I think has been moved to China. So that just has opened up gates for other countries as well, you know, to have the biggest women's tournament as a tennis player. I can say that for me it was a privilege. But having said that though, I think that traveling across the world and coming back to inequality, I think inequality exists everywhere in all kinds of things, whether it's economic growth, whether it's women, you know, and I specifically obviously deal with that on many levels. But there's inequality even today in sport where we're still supposed to justify why we get equal prize money even though we do. So I mean, obviously I think that in this time and age when we still need to justify that and we still need to explain why it happens, I think that is an opportunity for us to over here try to address that issue and try to actually do something about it. Where, you know, as women, we don't need to be always questioned or answered about why, you know, equality needs to exist. Deputy Prime Minister, can I turn to you now? First, let me add to the comments of Shobana and Sonia on this issue of, you know, how Singapore can be a gateway. You mentioned that it's interesting that the companies, the startups in Singapore find India a great place to scale up. And I think this is the example of collaboration that I've been mentioning, which is that Singapore, because we are small, we have to play in a very different way. We have to maximize the advantage of being small. The fact that we are one layer of governments that we have regulatory agencies that work well together with the development agencies allow us to make changes to rules and regulations much faster. And one good example is in FinTech. The Monetary Authority of Singapore, which is our central bank regulator, is also the agency that is promoting innovations in FinTech. But financial service says its own characteristics that if you don't regulate it well, you can end up with a problem, including financial crisis. So what MES has done is that they have created this idea of a regulatory sandbox. So anything that's done within this box with well-defined parameters are allowed where existing rules don't apply. But if you want to scale up, you have to do something else. So we hope that beyond the sandbox, in many ways, because Singapore is small and we can make changes to rules and regulations much more easily, we hope that that can be a source of innovation too. And in that regard, it allows for different models, whether it's healthcare, whether it's booking of travel, whether it is even in tennis game, for us to do a lot of that. And at the same time, to have very close relationship with our partner economies, and India is certainly one of those. And for us to then take the innovation to scale. And if it can be done within Asia, it can be done throughout the world. So this is a value. Now back to the two questions on the SICA. Well, SICA and negotiations are ongoing and the upgrade will be... Minister Chan Chuen Singh is dealing with this and he has told me that they are making good progress. And beyond that, we are also in discussions on the RCP, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. I very much hope that India will be a part of this very important agreement. And again, I hope that we can make good progress. The progress we are seeing is encouraging and I hope we built on that. Then on the question on the competition and collaborations, I think across all fields of activities, competition and cooperation will be an important model. My favourite example is, I think those of you who have been to Singapore, you know, we have plenty of hawker centres. And in a hawker centre, they sell a variety of food. Now, if every hawker sells the same identical food, only one or two will survive. Because the one or two that is the best in selling the same food will scale and take over the whole hawker centre. But that will make the hawker centre itself very unattractive because nobody is going to eat the same thing in the same place. So in the same way, I think, whether it's companies, whether it's countries, or companies in the same industry face the same common challenges, whether it is about the trading rules, whether it's about the skills of the labour or whether it is about government regulations. And I do believe that companies ought to come together within the same industry to look at how we can solve these issues together. And in fact, Switzerland is a very good example of this. I visited Switzerland to look at what the companies were doing. But at the same time, each company seeks to differentiate itself. That I'm offering consumers something different, something better than the other one. And because it is different, you can see how different consumers who have different preferences will go to different places. And the same applies for economies. You cannot have two economies operating identically, trying to have the same competitive advantages. Not possible. But we should then look at how we can collaborate and leverage of each other's strengths. That's a great point, Deputy Prime Minister. And one of my principal missions is to deliver all of our co-chairs to the opening plenary, which starts in seven minutes. So if you'll forgive us for departing promptly, I know there'll be a chance during the next couple of days to speak to them individually and follow up on anything that you really would like to pursue further. Thanks to all of them. I wish everyone here a very profitable and enjoyable two days. And see you in the opening plenary. Thank you.