What do you wish for your organisation in 2010, and what New Year resolutions are you making to achieve this? More generally, what are your hopes and

2010 has a “New Normal” and the old economic realities of high leveraging, low interest rate and excesses in capital markets is undergoing a rapid and fundamental change. We are seeing major deleveraging in many companies, an expanding economic role for government with its aggressive fiscal and monetary stimuli to prod the economy along and pervasive uncertainties despite sporadic and occasional sprouts of unexplainable exuberances. The crisis as has broad implications for many businesses which upended business models but at the same time also created unexpected opportunities.

The crisis taught us the importance of building flexibility into a company’s strategy and to always maintain nimbleness and responsiveness. My resolution for Singapore, especially, is for the remodeling of our economic framework to push Singapore into the next decade. Our recent drop in ranking for SGX needs a re-think. Hong Kong and Shenzhen topped the list of world IPO destinations, in terms of numbers and cash raised. Emerging market activity has dominated IPO markets this year with Chinese companies the largest source of total funds raised globally. Our bridging effect between the East and West is dwindling and unless there is a re-think on how we can reconfigure our financial structure to become an important node in the financial value chain, Singapore may be outflanked by increasingly more influential Chinese cities.