World Economic Forum again delays annual meeting in Singapore

The World Economic Forum has again pushed back its 2021 annual meeting in Singapore, rescheduling it for August from May given what it called "challenges in containing the pandemic".

The Geneva-based WEF, which last month delayed the event by 12 days in May, said on Wednesday it would now be held from Aug. 17-20.

"Although the World Economic Forum and Government of Singapore remain confident of the measures in place to ensure a safe and effective meeting, and local transmission of Covid-19 in Singapore remains at negligible levels, the change to the meeting's timing reflects the international challenges in containing the pandemic," it said in a statement.

Global travel restrictions have made planning difficult for an in-person meeting in the first half of the year, while differing quarantine and air transport regulations increased the lead time needed to ensure participants can join, it added.

Singapore's ministry of trade and industry said the government understood the challenges the WEF faced and had agreed to reschedule.

The annual meeting typically takes place in January in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, but the pandemic made that impossible this year.