Asian business leaders discuss globalization and overcoming crisis

Asian business leaders discuss globalization and overcoming crisis

DUBAI: The Asian Business Leaders Forum Talks Virtual Conclave met on Tuesday, with speakers discussing globalization, the COVID-19 pandemic and overcoming times of crisis. One of the speakers was India's ambassador to the UAE, Pavan Kapoor, who believed that leaders should be adaptive during challenging times. He said it was important for them to be open to collaboration and working with others, especially in the face of the current pandemic because it had negatively affected everyone. "I think certainly leaders need to be much more agile, they need to be flexible, they need to adapt to situations which they may have foreseen or not foreseen," he told delegates. He said that effective leadership must include the understanding that mistakes "can be made" in order to maintain rapport and trust with the public, and he touched on the UAE's work with India in several sectors such as the repatriation of Indian citizens and economic cooperation. The Gulf country imports sizable amounts of food from India but, despite national lockdowns on travel, exports were not affected. "We ensured that even when there was a lockdown in India food supplies kept coming from India to the UAE," Kapoor said. The two countries were