Arrangements like these, with trusted protocols and agreed measures, will build confidence in managing the risks of importation of the Covid-19 virus, and allow countries to re-open to trade and travel. Strengthening Digital Connectivity The second area countries must co-operate on is relatively new but is growing rapidly in importance – digital connectivity. We all know how the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the use of digital services. Amid safe distancing measures and movement controls, many firms have shifted to digital channels to conduct business. 2/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  E-commerce, online education, tele-medicine, remote working, internet banking – have all taken off spectacularly. The ability to conduct business on digital platforms, especially across borders, has become a competitive advantage – for it allows people and businesses to tap onto a global market for sales or supplies or solutions. We need to deepen digital connectivity across countries, to expand opportunities for our people and businesses. An area that could clearly benefit from digital and data connectivity is cross-border trade. There is a large number and variety of parties involved in an international trade transaction. The trade process is highly fragmented, paper-based, slow, and cumbersome. Harmonising and digitising trade documents and putting them through a seamless digital platform will help to make trade more efficient and secure. Food safety will be an area of high priority as we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. This often requires traceability in supply chains that span multiple countries. Being able to do this well requires data sharing and digital connectivity.

Ravi Menon: Covid-19 - we need more connectivity, not less Keynote speech (via video conference from Singapore) by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at Caixin Summer Summit 2020, 22 June 2020. * * * Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Thank you for inviting me to the Caixin Summer Summit 2020. COVID-19 has triggered the sharpest contraction in the global economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s. We can expect a gradual recovery from the third quarter onwards as countries re-open their economies. But there is considerable uncertainty about the strength and durability of this recovery. The trajectory of the economy will be largely shaped by the trajectory of the pandemic – which is itself a significant source of uncertainty. The risk of secondary waves of infection is not trivial. Those countries that have put in place strong safe management measures and a robust regime of testing, contact tracing, and swift isolation of infected persons, are more likely to minimise a second outbreak of infections and sustain their economic recovery. China’s experience is encouraging in this regard. It has been taking decisive steps to contain new outbreaks of infection while lifting movement restrictions and restoring economic activity. It is important that as countries seek to contain the pandemic, they do so in a way that does not undermine connectivity among them. Closer integration – through trade and investment – has underpinned the prosperity and poverty reduction we have seen globally since the Second World War.