Singapore’s Temasek Foundation and the Hinrich Foundation have for some months been mulling together over ways to help spur the convergence of these issues. The foundations held a closed-door roundtable to drive a conversation on how to help reshape public-private partnerships to strengthen the underpinnings of exchange and mutual benefit that will help many in the region thrive into the future.

At a time when trade – and its need for assistance to gain resilience and re-emphasis on its mutual benefits – is right at the top of the global agenda, participants at the roundtable recognized that trade has played an unsung and crucial role in the past half-century in lifting more than a billion people out of poverty especially in Asia.

Trade remains crucial as the Asian and global community strives to come together under unprecedented pressures, ranging from regional resilience to the green transition to threats to the global trading order.

The roundtable’s distinguished guests included top executives and officials from Standard Chartered, Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry, International Finance Corp., Asian Development Bank, the International Trade Union Confederation, Tata Consultancy, and Singapore Business Federation, among others.