Closing Remarks by Mr Cheng Hsing Yao
Chairman, Centre for Liveable Cities
World Cities Summit 2026 – Future Cities Leadership Plenary 2
16 June 2026

Minister, Excellencies, colleagues and friends.

It is a real privilege to be here to give the closing remarks.

Minister Indranee has already given us an excellent run-down of some of the key ideas and learning points from the last two to three days. Thank you for the advice for us to ACT, which is to accelerate, collaborate and transform.

For the closing remarks, I will just expound on just one idea: Cities Diplomacy.

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said in his address that ‘such city-to-city cooperation matters more than ever in a world that feels more divided and fragmented.’

We survived the Covid-19 pandemic. But collectively as humankind, unfortunately when we emerged from the pandemic, we did not become more united. The world has become more divided. Geopolitical tensions have risen, and even locally, many communities are facing greater polarization. So, with cities as a denominator, whether that offers us change for a different kind of diplomacy and conversation.

I would like to quote Minister Chee Hong Tat who said that ‘cities are united by a common purpose: to make our cities better places for the people who call them home.’

Mayors, city leaders and executives of our cities are really at front line of facing their residents and business community. This is where the rubber hits the road. It is real. You can’t use any explanation or rhetoric to tell residents who are dissatisfied because there are not enough homes or enough jobs.

City leaders are also like hustlers who have to attract investments. But investors are not going to put money down just because there is a nice story or there is a beautiful plan. They have to believe in the leadership; they have to believe in the plan and the institutions of the city.

As a side note, Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, came to Singapore not just to receive the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize, but brought along a trade mission to try to seal more deals, economic opportunities and attract investment. In fact, he is making his way to Tokyo as well.

There is a lot of real work to try to bring in investment and resources to build cities. We have issues such as energy security, food prices, supply chain resilience and climate change. These are all issues that cities cannot solve on their own.

Therefore, there is a common purpose that all cities face. That common purpose becomes the common language that cities can use to talk to one another. The thought is that cities from countries in strategic rivalry can perhaps still find a common or practical topic to talk to one another.

This diplomacy applies even within a country itself. At the Lee Kuan Yew World Cities Prize Network Knowledge Forum, Mr Omar Al-Rawi, a member of the Vienna City Council, shared an example of cities with different political alignments coming together to collectively negotiate with their federal government.

Now that we are at the 10th edition of the World Cities Summit, we have to date, many mayors, city leaders and practitioners from more than 260 cities from all around the world, coming to Singapore over many editions of the World Cities Summit to converse and convene. That in itself is very special.

In this World Cities Summit as well as previous ones, we have witnessed cities coming from very different ideologies or even opposing geopolitical alliances, sitting and speaking with each other in the same room. That in itself is very precious.

I think that the World Cities Summit can go beyond being a knowledge platform for the exchange of urban solutions, to become a global, and very importantly, neutral platform for cities to communicate and build understanding despite their differences.

In closing, I would like to thank you for attending the World Cities Summit. We look forward to welcoming you again at the Mayors Forum in Mexico City next year, and back to Singapore in 2028 for the next edition of the World Cities Summit.

I would like to also thank our partners and sponsors for supporting us. And to the management and staff of Centre for Liveable Cities, Urban Redevelopment Authority, and Ministry of National Development, thank you for your hard work to making the World Cities Summit 2026 a success.