Next year's annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank will be a special 'Singapore experience', promises Lim Hwee Hua, Minister of State at the Singapore finance ministry who will oversee organization of the mammoth event.
Handling a convention expected to attract 16,000 people to the island republic will be 'quite challenging', Ms Lim told Emerging Markets.
Asia's growing importance as a centre of trade and investment means it is 'time for the annual meetings to move to Asia', Lim said. Singapore is also anxious to 'showcase' its own achievements and those of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to the world's finance ministers, central bank governors and other officials and bankers.
'We are very happy also that, for the first time, we [as host country for the meeting] are involved in determining the content of the seminar programme' said Lim, who is in Washington with a team of Singapore government officials, learning the logistics of organizing an annual meeting.
'We feel quite privileged that we can influence the seminars,' she said, adding that the 'emphasis will be on Asia.'
The whole exercise will set Singapore back about $80 million, but the government hopes to recoup 'part of this' through revenues from spending by official delegations and others on hotels, entertainment and leisure, Ms Lim said. The event will come in the middle of the two month-long Singapore art 'Bienniale'.
The Singapore meetings, which run from 13 to 20 September next year, with plenary sessions of the IMF and Bank governors being held on the last two days, will be held at the island's Suntec City Convention Centre in downtown Singapore. It promises to better attended than this year's meeting; international banks have already started reserving accommodation.