Falling markets to figure at Davos meet

January 22, 2008 16:15 IST

Amidst worries of US slowdown and investors fleeing equity markets, over 2,500 global business and political leaders including Finance Minister P Chidambaram will assemble for the annual World Economic Forum meeting starting Wednesday at a snow-laden Swiss resort in Davos.

Chidambaram, who has asked Indian investors not to panic and have faith in strong fundamentals of the domestic economy, will have a global audience to talk about the impact of US slowdown on the emerging economies.

He will be joined by Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, who has a busy work schedule, including meeting trade ministers of key WTO players including the US, European Union and Brazil.

Though the theme of the WEF meeting is the 'Power of Collaborative Innovation', jubilation over strong global economy last year may be missing this time around.

In fact, the US mortgage crisis spreading out as a contagion to the world economy, high crude oil prices besides slow progress for a multilateral trade deal under the Doha Round are expected to be discussed prominently in five days starting January 23.

According to Klaus Schwab, founder of the WEF, discussions in Davos will certainly be dominated by economic challenges in the aftermath of subprime crisis, transfer of capital from energy-consuming to energy-producing countries, and inflationary tendencies.