how do you compare this crisis with for
example the global financial crisis or
the Asian crisis do you think this has
the potential to be as bad as any of
those or worse
so the during my budget statement I made
a point that it's important for us not
to fight the Korean War based on the
lessons of the last war because every
crisis has similar element to other
crisis but it also has differentiating
factors which we have to take into
account so how is this different
compared to the global financial crisis
and how is this similar but what is
similar is that there's been a sharp
drop of confidence the disruption to the
global economy has been significant but
during a global crisis it was a crisis
of confidence in the financial system in
the banking system and as a result of
which the impact was largely through
financial China's in this instance we
are dealing with two problems at the
same time the virus and a spirit of
virus for which we actually while we
have some sense of how the scenario my
pan out we cannot be absolutely sure
that you'll be that way and in fact one
of the things that we have to do during
this crisis is to sketch out what are
the possible scenarios so we have a
first draft of it which we would provide
more details to the public later and
based on our contacts with the global
experts based on our own experts we have
some idea of the scenarios in which this
could play out from the very worse
scenario to the most optimistic scenario
and towards a central scenario now in
turn how this virus outbreak is managed
and contained will affect the economic
scenario so unlike the global financial
crisis you now have
your no dependence on the containment of
the outbreak and not just a pure normal
economic engine and of course the other
major factor is how will the us-china
trade conflict and technology conflict
and the broader strategic competition we
reshaped by this outbreak of virus
because I think I personally feel that
when you are dealing with a global
pandemic you need a global response
unique global cooperation it cannot be
that I just say that myself
you have to help one another in this
effort so how that will work out how the
economy will be reshaped by this will be
another major factor any other any other
views on comparing the crises the anti
global sentiments that you see prior to
the crisis if it's not going to have all
this lead so and the global response is
a bit sketchy initially what what can be
done I mean in your view to have a more
coordinated global response in terms of
trying to manage this copy 19 issue to
give some some reassurance and to to to
to many T's to the economy minister well
I would say the global responses have to
be done at by global institutions at
different levels and with four different
facets of the economy right one is that
the wh overdue to play a critical role
in this in how we bring together the
global resources and the global
knowledge on handling a virus outbreak
like this and that is really the key
mandates of the W issue so I think it's
very important for all of us to
cooperate with WH you to provide up to
the information and to make sure that
you know each of us do not just hide bad
news it is important to be transparent
about this and we can then make a proper
assessment of how the virus is spreading
or not spreading and in turn how we
should look at how testing facilities
for instance can be better done and that
there is a set of minimum
responses which various countries all
countries ought to have so I think that
the Museo has done well so far but I
think that the global cooperation is
very much needed
not a second is that the global central
banks will need to also coordinate the
policies particularly a monetary policy
and I think the monetary policy provides
the important stabilization so the habit
of cooperation in among law central
banks have been building up since the
global financial crisis I hope that it
stays the recent actions have not been
very positive in some areas but I hope
that we can continue that discussion and
in particular the g20 can play important
role in coordinating this response and
within the region
you know the ASEAN among ASEAN Dumanis M
plus three we can coordinate some of
these responses both to the outbreak as
well as to the economic situation and
financial situation and of course global
institutions like the IMF and World Bank
must play a key role in this in
particular the World Bank has the IMF
has important role of maintaining
stability and this is where we can build
the informations and share our
assessment of the stability of the
global economy and World Bank has
important mission of comparing global
poverty know the virus is not going to
respect boundary based on sense income
and therefore putting in place good
measures across different countries and
I think the World Bank the Asian
Development Bank AIB can all play a role
in strengthening our vision and global
responses to this outbreak I'm afraid we
have run out of time but there is one
question D p.m. I must ask I think a lot
of people want to know yes and how is
how is the covert 19 gonna affect the
election timetable
well I think first and foremost at this
very moment we're very focused on any
continued outbreak and being managing
this impact on our economy as I
emphasized that we're looking at how we
need to save jobs and how we need to
help our companies especially as a meze
to go through this and we're also
looking at supporting our Fran's line
well you mentioned in fact many of our
frontline workers have been very
courageous and I'm very glad that the
fellow singaporeans have been going out
you know expressing their support for
frontline and our frontline workers the
morale has remained very high so I think
Minister thank you and the minister
Lauren swarm together the task force
have done a good job in supporting our
health care workers in particularly the
frontline and also our workers at the
various paper from night and our
checkpoints at our ambulance facilities
and so on so this is what we are
focusing on now no but the elections
have to caught before April 20-21 so we
cannot deviate from that and what we
must do is to create the conditions that
will allow us to manage the situations
as to the best of our ability and I will
say that looking at the global
developments I think the virus outbreak
is likely to stay with us for longer and
in fact as I mentioned you have so many
different waves now coming across in
different parts of the world and how
these waves are going to interact with
the economy environments in this current
economy environment is really quite
difficult to predict and it is important
that we have all the management
attentions to deal with this and I'm
afraid that the management attention
that we need to deal with this we all
get
more challenged in the months ahead
because the situation is so fluid so
dynamic that I think we need to be able
to respond as fully as we can as a
country and as a people to this very
major uncertainty in our lives both to
our health and also to our both to our
lives as well as to our livelihood
because the we don't know how the global
economy will pan out so I don't want to
be alarmist about this it
the best-case scenario will be that you
know it it reverts to normally much
faster but I don't think we should plan
on the basis of hoping for the best we
need to be prepared for the worst and so
I hope that we will have the conditions
to allow us to do that and that will be
a very major factor in deciding on or
when we call for election
you