SINGAPORE: Small countries like Singapore need more "polylateral" cooperation with countries and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in a changing and fractured world, Temasek Holdings chairman Teo Chee Hean said on Wednesday (Oct 27).

As multilateral cooperation has become "frayed and weak", polylateral arrangements can help support global cooperation, alongside bilateral and plurilateral partnerships between countries, the former senior minister said.

"This can provide the foundation upon which we rebuild the multilateral layer when the time is right," he said during a fireside chat at the Steward Leadership Summit.

Pointing to past experience, Mr Teo said Singapore pursued more bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) after the 1999 World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings, as it realised that "getting things done through the WTO was going to be very difficult".

The WTO Ministerial Conference in Seattle in 1999 failed to reach agreement and faced large-scale anti-globalisation protests.

He noted that many countries are taking a similar approach today, pointing to how the European Union, Canada and India have recently concluded long-stalled FTA negotiations.

Mr Teo was addressing public and private sector leaders at the Hilton Singapore Orchard, in the summit organised by the Steward Leadership Institute, a non-profit organisation established by Temasek Holdings.

In his keynote address ahead of the fireside chat, Mr Teo said that dramatic changes in geopolitics, technology, energy and business are converging.

These, he added, must be dealt with not as single issues but through comprehensive, interconnected strategies.

Major power and geopolitical competition will remain with us for some time, even if open conflicts subside or even if there are leadership transitions in some countries," he said.

"Smaller countries and businesses cannot afford to stand still and wait in silence in the hope that things will somehow go back where we were before. They will not." Mr Teo said smaller countries and businesses therefore have to create options for themselves. This involves s tewardship guided by a clear purpose, disciplined governance, enlightened self-interest and a responsibility towards future generations.

For government and business leaders, this means prioritising the creation of long-term value and sustainable returns, instead of short-term thinking in response to pressures.

"You may maximise deal to deal, but in the end you lose friends, you lose partners, and you find that people may choose to deal with somebody else rather than you," he said.

Mr Teo also highlighted discussions around artificial intelligence (AI) guardrails as one area that could benefit from polylateral cooperation.

This could include a coalition of governments, major AI companies and NGOs, as well as unions, as workers have valid concerns about how they will be affected by AI adoption, he said.

In the case of AI, he noted that Singapore bucks a global trend of developed economies being less accepting of the technology, pointing to survey results that show more local acceptance for AI than concern about the risks it poses, such as job displacement.

He attributed this to people's confidence that the Singapore government will be able to put in place appropriate restraints on AI use, limiting some of the technology's societal ills and dangers.

After many waves of industrial and workforce transformation, there is confidence that the tripartite partnership of government, employers and unions will help workers make the transition to the age of AI, he said.