The World Economic Forum annually brings together representatives of the global financial and political elite. Experts call Davos a financial trend setter for the entire world community.
The format of events that have been held annually for 20 years within the framework of the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) is a four-day marathon of conferences, sessions, discussion panels and informal negotiations of socially responsible businessmen and politicians who have gathered from all over the world to the Alpine Davos. Once again, the resort town, located in the east of Switzerland on the Landwasser River, became the world financial and economic capital in January 2018.
The world is a market, and people are partners in it
The motto of the 48th World Economic Forum is “Creating a shared future in a fragmented world”. Among the topical issues of our time discussed at Davos-2018 were:
- environmental threats from extreme temperatures and weather conditions;
- problems of economic inequality in society and the future of the social security system;
- assessment of the likelihood of a collapse of the global IT system and the fight against cyber attacks;
- free movement of labor and job security in the post-crisis space.
Among other problems, the following issues were discussed in the open fields and closed areas of the forum:
- how to eliminate social stratification, which is the reason for the reduction in the size of the middle class in the G-20 countries;
- how to create an optimal social security system and observe the principle of equitable distribution of benefits in conditions when 1% of the world's population owns 82% of all world wealth;
- how to assess the impact on society and business of the effect of the use of robotics and technologies in the field of AI;
- a platform called Blockchain Davos was dedicated to digital assets;
- at closed political sessions, they discussed the situation in Syria, the Korean Peninsula and other hot spots.
Among the topics of the Davos 2018 forum, three of the most striking speeches and two of the most unexpected economic forecasts were noted:
- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking of the most important problems for humanity, put climate change and the movement of society from excessive consumerism to the dominance of greed on a par.
- Inga Bill, executive director of Lloyd, said that there is a need to develop new methods for assessing the economy. In her opinion, at the present stage, GDP is not a key economic indicator.
- In her speech, the head of M&G Investments, Anne Richards, suggested that the collapse of the global IT system could become the cause of the next financial crisis.
- The forecast for the growth of the world economy to 3, 9% per year was made by the Managing Director of the IMF Christine Lagarde.
- The main topic in the speech of US President Donald Trump was investment, and exclusively in the American economy, while he was most expected to report on tax reform in the country. Despite the fact that the speech of the President of the United States was not of a political nature, sanctions against Russia were imposed only two hours after his speech.
Representation of EEF delegations
The 48th Economic Forum in Davos was attended by about 3,000 people. Among 350 VIPs, there were 60 leaders of states - presidents and prime ministers, many prominent scientists, including 12 Nobel laureates. About 2,000 leaders of the world's leading companies and 900 members from 40 international non-governmental organizations took part in the work of 400 sessions of the forum. Representatives of the global economic system included the UN, IMF, World Bank, Greenpeace and others. National delegations are formed from officials: civil servants, parliamentarians, heads of companies with state participation. Among the unofficial guests are informal representatives of countries, businessmen and magnates of the private sector of the economy.
WEF President Börge Brende noted that the representation of countries at Davos 2018 turned out to be almost a European summit. This is the largest state office in the entire history of the WEF, since the leaders of 10 African countries and 9 Middle Eastern states, as well as 6 heads of Latin American governments, attended the forum. As for the leaders of the Russian state, Vladimir Putin came to Davos in 2009 as prime minister. Dmitry Medvedev took part in the forum three times - in 2008, 2011 and 2013.
The Russian representative office at EEF-2018 was headed by Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich. The Russian official delegation included the ministers of economic development, energy, communications and mass communications. Among the oligarchs, Mikhail Prokhorov and Vagit Alekperov visited Davos. Businessman Viktor Vekselberg and Rusal owner Oleg Deripaska are among the permanent participants of the WEF. The head of the VBT, Andrey Kostin, has been participating in the Russia House forum for over 20 years without interruption.
The main intrigue of Davos 2018 was the ban imposed by the organizers of the WEF on the participation in subsequent meetings of three representatives of Russian business, who fell under Western sanctions. This almost caused a boycott of Russia against Davos, which was actively discussed in political circles and business media. However, by the beginning of the preparatory period for the next winter session of 2019, the restriction on entrepreneurs was removed. Passions subsided, and the Russian delegation again went to conquer the top of Davos.
