BEIJING (Reuters) – The Bloomberg New Economy Forum will move to Singapore this year, in part because of the “very concerning” conditions journalists face in China, according to comments by Bloomberg founder Michael Bloomberg reported by the Financial Times.
The Nov. 16-19 event will be limited to 400 participants, with sustainability as well as COVID-19 and how countries can recover from its impact among topics for discussion, according to a media release on Thursday.
Bloomberg, the billionaire founder of Bloomberg News and the former mayor of New York City, also cited “logistics” as a reason to hold the event in Singapore, the Financial Times reported.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for elaboration on his comments.
The inaugural forum, in 2018, was to be held in Beijing but was shifted to Singapore amid rising tensions between China and the United States. It was held in Beijing the next year, and returned to the Chinese capital virtually in 2020 due to the pandemic.
China has managed to curtail the domestic spread of COVID-19 and has drastically cut down on the number of arrivals from overseas, who are typically required to undergo at least two weeks of quarantine.
(Reporting by David Kirton; Editing by Stephen Coates)
