Raymond Lim, second minister for finance and foreign affairs, promised that the demonstrators who traditionally dog the international financial organizations' meetings would not be kept out.

"Absolutely -- within the limits of the law," he told reporters when asked if Singapore would tolerate public protests at the September 2006 meetings.

"We can't be prim and proper Singapore. To stay relevant, you can't wipe the dust off all of the time," Lim said, in advance of this year's IMF-World Bank meetings in Washington this weekend.

Singapore, one of the richest countries in Asia, is the land that famously banned chewing gum as a sticky menace to its spotless streets.

But authorities hope to showcase the city-state as a lively hub of cutting-edge technologies and vibrant arts when the 184 members of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund descend upon it in 12 months' time.

More broadly, Lim said, the annual meetings should also demonstrate to outsiders that Southeast Asia has decisively turned a corner after much of the region was brought to its knees by a financial crisis in 1997.

It was important for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations "to show the outside world that we are back in business", he said.

"Even though the region has restructured and is moving ahead, many analysts and investors see ASEAN through a rear-view mirror (back to 1997) rather than looking to the future," the minister said.

Sources said it is hoped that prominent Asian heads of government, including leaders from China, India and Japan, will join their finance ministers at the meetings in Singapore to add weight to the regional sales pitch.
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