Archive for January 27th, 2007

Last thoughts on Davos 2007

I began this blog on Tuesday by saying that it had started snowing. The big issue for many of the less well-heeled among us — those without heavy duty limos and helicopters — is whether the snow that has built up all day will let us get home now that the World Economic Forum’s meeting is essentially over.

Let’s hope that the Swiss train system handles snow better than the British one handles leaves. (For those of you not familiar with British trains, they get disrupted easily.)

The Davos meeting has had one big achievement, being the locale for the agreement to restart global trade talks. It has also confirmed that climate change is now one of the top items on the world agenda. Africa, we are told, is getting a bit better. But it is still far, far away from being an Asian Tiger economy, or should that be African Lion economy?

There was also a remarkable degree of optimism about the global economy and the prospects for businesses. Sometimes when there is a large consensus, the opposite happens. But there were a few naysayers going around, so not every one is on the same page.

As for this blog, tell me what you think by e-mailing me at jeremy.gaunt(at)reuters.com.

NB: THIS OFFER NOT OPEN TO STAFF OF REUTERS OR THEIR FAMILIES.

Off into the snow, then.

Food for thought at Davos

Davos is nothing if not international. So it seemed no big deal when lunch on Friday turned out to be a Saudi Arabian buffet. It was brought to us by people “proudly investing in the future of Saudia Arabia”. And very nice it was too.

Some ravenous attendees — including journalists, I’m sorry to report — rushed to get fed (pictured). Two queues formed, one from each end, causing something of a confusion at the meat and rice in the middle of the table. The spirit of Davos triumphed, however, and jostling was at a minimum and no one I heard tried to say where the queue should have started.

One of the young women serving us, wearing a Gulf-style costume but clearly from a more Germanic part of the world, did have a bit of a problem. People kept asking her what one of the dishes was. “I don’t know. It looks like porridge,” was her reply.

Trading up at Davos

What business wants business (often) gets. Many of the executives popping in and out of panel discussions in Davos this week have been pushing harder than usual for a resumption of the stalled Doha round of world trade talks. Abracadabra! A meeting of government ministers on the sidelines, to use the jargon, agreed to get the ball rolling again.

Some, like Brazil’s foreign minister Chelso Amorim even reckon a trade deal of some sort can be hashed out by the end of March or early April. That would be earlier than the six months demanded earlier this week in a Davos-related statement from top chairmen and chief executive officers.

It all remains to be seen, of course, but the World Economic Forum will see the agreement to restart talks as a success for its annual meeting. On which point, I would add something to my earlier blog about why people come here.

Davos-like events make it easier, perhaps even providing an excuse, for the very busy to get together without calling for a special meeting. Sometimes it’s the big guys like trade
ministers here or Middle East peace plan negotiators in the WEF’s Jordan meeting some years back.

But it also happens on a micro level. One Californian executive told me he had been trying in vain for months to get together with some local counterparts back home. In the end, they got together here.

Non, non, a thousand times, non

Royal-watchers could have had a pretty good time in Davos. The king and queen of Jordan, who host a Middle East Davos most years on the banks of the Dead Sea, have been speaking. Britain’s Duke of York has been wandering about. So has Belgium’s Prince Philippe.
 
But one Royal that has not been here is Segolene, presidential candidate for France’s Socialists. Nor for that matter have many French officials, candidates or otherwise, been around. Germany, Britain, the United States, Russia, China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa have been most evident. La France, non.
 
The reason, French journalists say, is that Davos is altogether too into globalisation for gallic taste. Irony of ironies, then, that one of the top Frenchmen here is Pascal Lamy, secretary general of the World Trade Organisation.
 
France’s Davosophobia has triggered the ire of at least one of the country’s columnists — Nicolas Barre in Le Figaro. His gist is that France is hurting itself by snubbing Davos. That France is angry about globalisation is nothing new, he says, but that is no reason to shout it from the rooftop of the world.

School’s (almost) out

The snow is falling heavily and there is a kind of end-of-term feeling in Davos as the WEF annual meeting enters its last full day. Not a bad time, then, to ask why people really bother to come here.

There is a lot of scepticism among outsiders that Davos is just a big talking shop, full of self-importance and hot air. Some of this doubtless comes from the way the WEF presents itself. “Shaping the Global Agenda” is hardly a modest goal.

Talk of the “spirit of Davos” can, let’s face it, grate.

But the top business leaders wandering the halls here don’t buy into that wholesale. Chats with a number of them over the past few days have shown a general fondness for the meeting but for interestingly diverse reasons.

First there are the networkers like the European blue-chip CEO who said he goes nowhere near any of the discussion panels and comes simply to meet people. Then there are the sellers like the American hi-tech entrepreneur who was out flogging his latest toy or the Middle Eastern official who said he was tooting his organisation’s horn.

But the intellectual debate available is also a major draw. A leading wealth manager told me that of course he was here to meet clients, but what he really liked was that once a year he got to go “back to school”. Where else can he spend time digging into old issues and learning about completely new ones?