Clueless statists gather for Davos crisis summit

IT USED to be the domain of the world's biggest financiers, schmoozing, skiing and comparing six-figure bonuses. But this year the uber economic conference in Davos has been taken over by the financial rule-makers - presidents, prime ministers, chancellors and cabinet ministers.

For the first time the World Economic Forum, which begins in the Swiss ski resort on Wednesday, will be driven by politicians and economic policymakers - not the bankers blamed for the crisis.

This year's meeting, given the moniker "Shaping the post-crisis world", is to focus on strategies to extricate the global economy from what has been described as the most severe economic crisis since the 1930s.

And while the new US President, Barack Obama, will not be there, his electronic campaign strategy harnessing the power of YouTube, mass email and citizen journalism will give a new, 21st century shape to the proceedings. Organisers have launched a series of online video forums to provide a soapbox for Everyman and Everywoman.

Each social network has asked its members to answer questions taken from the meeting's formal agendas, and already 400 videos have been offered gleaning 600,000 hits. Two winning entrants, to be chosen in the next few days, will cover Davos as "citizen journalists".

Mr Obama will send his Director of the US National Economic Council, Larry Summers, and General James Jones, his National Security Adviser.

No less than 41 heads of state and government are expected to attend. The Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, will open the forum, and the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, will be present throughout.

Others attending will include: the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel; the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown; the Japanese Prime Minister, Taro Aso; the former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan; the Newscorp chairman, Rupert Murdoch; the chairman of Bayer, Werner Wenning; and the chairman of HSBC in Britain, Stephen Green.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, will arrive on Thursday, flanked by the Treasurer, Wayne Swan. Altogether about 36 finance ministers and heads of central banks, including all the central bank chiefs of the Group of Eight nations, will be seen in and around Davos at some point next week. In addition, more than 1400 chief executives and company chairmen - representing just over half the official participants - will attend the talks.

The forum's chairman and founder, Klaus Schwab, said that the world was clearly unable to cope with the complexities of modern financial structures.

"The extraordinary participation in terms of political and business leaders … demonstrates that our annual meeting will be the place where key actors can address both a crisis of unprecedented scope and, at the same time, the sort of world we collectively want to see emerging once the crisis is over.

"What we are experiencing is the birth of a new era, a wake-up call to overhaul our institutions, our systems and, above all, our way of thinking."

LNK

Clueless statists gather for Davos crisis summit

Clueless statists gather for Davos crisis summit

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