Attendees are responsible for booking their own rooms at the New York Hilton Midtown. Room reservations made by Thursday, May 23, 2019 will be eligible for the group rate of $399.00 plus applicable taxes and fees for single or double occupancy. The negotiated group rate is based on availability and applies to reservations for Sunday, June 9, 2019 through Wednesday, June 12, 2019.
Should businesses expect to rethink Chinese sourcing strategies? Will Chinese firms face similar pressures?
Chaired by Senior Practice Lead Rebecca Park
The protracted conflict in Ukraine, India’s rice export ban, and pandemic restrictions over the last three years have all emphasised Southeast Asia’s uncertainties over food security. The soaring price of both fossil fuels and energy-intensive fertiliser production have both constrained farmers in boosting crop supply. Regional food security featured heavily at the ASEAN Summit, G20 Summit, and APEC Summit. While global food prices have been on a downward trend since they peaked in March 2022, households across Southeast Asia continue to struggle with high food inflation.
Singapore exemplifies this. 90% of consumed foods in Singapore are imported. In recognising the vulnerability this presents, the Singapore government has embarked on a two-pronged approach that combines diversifying its import sources while investing in innovations to build domestic resilience. As of 2022, Singapore imports food supplies from 180 countries around the world.
Given Singapore’s land scarcity, the government has also invested in strengthening local food production. In 2019, the Singapore government launched a ‘30 by 30’ plan to build up the city-state’s capability and capacity to produce 30% of its nutritional needs locally and sustainably by 2030. The Singapore Food Agency, which oversees the plan, has launched a $60m Agri-Food Cluster Transformation Fund in 2021 to provide capital to farms to expand their crop cultivation capabilities and capacities, which will be available until 2025.
Agri-food tech start-ups have been central to this. Enterprise Singapore has allocated over $55m in 2020 to accelerate the growth of promising local aqua- and agriculture. The investment arm of Enterprise Singapore, SEEDS Capital, has appointed seven co-investment partners to catalyse over $90m of investments into early-stage agri-food tech start-ups. It is also anchoring five global agri-food tech accelerators and one local life sciences accelerator under the Startup SG Accelerator programme. These policies are likely to produce not just interesting opportunities for investment but something of a test case for state-backed innovation in agriculture that will be transferable to other urban contexts around the world.
Global Counsel works with companies and investors across a wide range of sectors to anticipate the ways in which politics, regulation and public policymaking create both risk and opportunity – and to develop and implement strategies to meet these challenges.
From high-level in-conversations and policy webinars, to large scale conferences, our events draw from a network of government, industry, academia and civil society to foster debate and discussion.
