Davos ski resort masks buzz as World Economic Forum talkfest goes virtual

Built around the Great Reset theme, Merkel, Macron, Xi, and Modi to speak at virtual forum

The pistes at Davos Klosters are quiet. Hotels are empty. There is not a helicopter to be seen and sirens heralding the arrival of the rich and powerful — from state leaders and business chiefs to political thinkers — are silent. The buzz associated with the World Economic Forum (WEF), usually held in the Swiss Alpine town at this time of the year, is absent. But consistent with its never-say-die spirit, the 51st WEF 2021 will be held online from January 25-29, followed by an in-person meeting in Singapore in May as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi will address the meeting virtually on January 28 and a high-profile team of Indian ministers — Railways and Trade Minister Piyush Goyal, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Textiles Minister Smriti Irani, Oil and Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, and Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar — has signed up to attend.

Businessmen from India who have registered are Mukesh Ambani, Sunil Mittal, Anand Mahindra, G Kiran Kumar, Sanjiv Bajaj, Hari Bhartia Jayadev Galla, Ajit Gulabchand, Shobana Kamineni, Hemant Kanoria, Pawan Munjal, Salil Parekh, Jai Shroff, Sumant Sinha, and Vaishali Sinha, among others.

Former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan is to attend. Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prime Minister of Japan Yoshihide Suga, President of France Emmanuel Macron, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will be among the world leaders to address the Davos agenda week. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Chief Anthony Fauci will also speak at one of the sessions.

Klaus Schwab, founder of the forum, which was established in 1971 in Geneva, said the thrust of the meeting this year would be on “rebuilding trust”. The WEF’s Great Reset initiative will also be launched where industry leaders and public figures will discuss how to advance and accelerate public-private collaboration on critical issues, such as Covid-19 vaccination, job creation, and climate change, among others.

“A Great Reset is necessary to build a new social contract that honours the dignity of every human being,” explained Schwab at a press conference, adding, “The global health crisis has laid bare the unsustainability of our old system in terms of social cohesion, lack of equal opportunities, and inclusiveness. Nor can we turn our backs on the evils of racism and discrimination. We need to build into this new social contract our intergenerational responsibility to ensure we live up to the expectations of young people.”

He conceded wryly that the element of business networking so integral to the Davos meetings would be absent because the event had gone online, but added that the organisation would quickly pick up the threads at Singapore in May.

Each day will focus on one of the five domains of the Great Reset initiative. On January 25, the meeting will address the theme of designing cohesive, sustainable, and resilient economic systems, followed by sessions on driving responsible industry transformation and growth, enhancing stewardship of the global commons, harnessing the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and advancing global and regional cooperation.

Schwab said the voices of Asian leaders, including PM Modi, will be heard with rapt attention because it is a fact universally acknowledged that Asia will lead the world in the coming years.

“Independent, impartial, and not tied to special interests” is how the not-for-profit WEF describes itself. It started initially with an invitation extended by Schwab to executives from 444 European companies to a meeting on corporate governance at a convention centre at Davos, with the aim of introducing business management approaches to European firms.

Schwab said at the press conference that he had never imagined the prestigious summit would go online one day. The Davos forum yields hundreds of new management and business ideas each year. Many attribute the origins of the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed between Canada, Mexico, and the United States, to the meeting at Davos where it was first proposed informally.

Former director general of the Confederation of Indian Industry Tarun Das, who was associated with WEF for more than 25 years, says: “We used Davos to present India to the world: it was always a great platform where leaders — political, business, academic — built relationships. It continues to be an amazing network and WEF always presents new ideas, initiatives, and is always creative.”

This is only the second time the meeting will move out of Davos: the first time, the WEF held a special meeting at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel in 2002, just after the twin towers attack in a gesture of solidarity with Wall Street. On that occasion, for a few hours, the trading floor at the New York stock exchange was turned into a dance floor, as global business vowed it would not be cowed down by terror attacks. This year, in the face of the pandemic, the online meeting will discuss challenges to the world, racial and economic inequity, and health and governance challenges facing the world.