Singapore  - A surprise early appearance of US President Barack Obama at the annual summit of 21 Asian-Pacific economies in Singapore on Saturday rescued the traditional costumed group photo of the leaders.

Coming from Japan, Obama was originally expected to arrive for the Singapore summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)late Saturday, prompting the organizers to postpone the planned group photo session to Sunday with all leaders appearing in business suits.

But due to changes in his program, the US president arrived just in time "for quite a large part of the dinner" with the other leaders, a spokeswoman for the APEC organizers said Sunday. That allowed them to squeeze in a photo session with all leaders wearing specially designed attire chosen by the summit host.

A photo with all leaders just wearing business suits "would not have made such an impression," she said.

The symbolic group photo with leaders dressed in costume provided by the host economy is seen as the highlight of every APEC summit.

For the Singapore summit, organizers chose designs inspired by Singapore's Peranakan culture, a unique blend of Chinese, Indian and Malay cultural heritages.  (dpa)