39th Annual Davos World Economic Forum (27th January to 1st Feb 09): Global leaders urge collaboration and swift action

Despite the current economic slowdown, India was represented by an 85-member delegation, led by Kamal Nath, commerce & industry minister — around the same as last year — at the annual World Economic Forum (WEF).

Kamal Nath reitrated that the India story was far more broad-based than evident from the Satyam affair. Nath said investors were not looking at the episode as a red flag. He said some 60% of Fortune 500 companies are invested in India due to the confidence they have in the country. The minister insisted that India would not be hit as badly as other nations by the financial crisis.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of India’s Planning Commission, told a panel in Davos-: “Confidence grows at the rate that a coconut tree grows, but confidence falls at the rate that the coconut falls,” He also indicated that India’s decision not to float its currency and to build up massive reserves was correct, noting that this gave it a cushion during the downturn. “Floating (currencies) would be fine, if that was what was meant, but what they mean by floating is crashing upwards and crashing downwards.”


"We have reached the crisis in the way we operate some of our institutions and we have got to make sure that they are based on the values that every sensible person would support and not making some exceptions for a financial institution because it is in difficult territory or it's got to take ridiculous kinds of risk. We've got to build them around these values. And then we've got to build the structures of transparency and disclosure, the cross-border supervision as well as the ability of our international institutions to help." - Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of United Kingdom

"The policies we need to overcome financial crises are the same to combat climate change. We need green sustainable growth. Green efficiency is sound economics." - Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Prime Minister of Denmark



Founded in 1971, the Geneva, Switzerland based World Economic Forum (WEF) meets annually in Davos, Switzerland to bring together top business and political leaders as well as intellectuals, economists, journalists, and others. Annually, Davos becomes headquarters for the world's power elite to meet and review past achievements, challenges, and prospects of world markets, resources, and people everywhere.

The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas. World Economic Forum is impartial and not-for-profit; it is tied to no political, partisan or national interests. The World Economic Forum is under the supervision of the Swiss Federal Government.

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