Water & Food Security: The Positives

With Rio+20, how can we not explore water & food security. Unfortunately, these themes are large, slow moving and generally depressing. So this month, we choose to look at the positives as the financial sector takes a step towards moving beyond GDP in the Natural Capital Declaration and 45 CEOs call for a price hike in water to reflect its real value. We continue to be bullish on China importing more food following panel discussions on food and water at Standard Chartered Earth’s Resources Conference, and feel optimistic after hearing institutional managers of US$1.8trillion say water risk is beyond pricing in NBIM’s water seminar. The water sector is also heating up with S$13.6billion (US$10.7bn) of MOUs & deals announced and signed last week at Singapore International Water Week; the head of cleantech at Singapore’s Economic Development Board gives us the lowdown on the event, new tech and growth areas. Singapore’s drive to be a global water hydrohub is in stark contrast with Hong Kong’s laissez-faire attitude, the Civic Exchange tells us why time may be running out for Hong Kong.