Arun Jaitley & Kamal Nath Among Indian Leaders to Attend WEF in January 2019 at Davos

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and two of his Union Cabinet colleagues are likely to travel to Switzerland’s snow-laden resort town of Davos next month for the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting, which would also be attended by three Chief Ministers, including Madhya Pradesh’s Kamal Nath and over 100 Indian CEOs.

Microsoft’s Indian-origin CEO Satya Nadella and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim will be among the co-chairs of the 2019 edition of this annual congregation of world leaders from January 21-25.

Nadella and Kim would be joined by six young leaders under the age of 30 as co-chairs —  Basima Abdulrahman from Iraq, Juan David Aristizabal from Colombia, Sweden’s Noura Berrouba, Julia Luscombe from the US, Mohammed Hassan Mohamud from Kenya and Japan’s Akira Sakano.

US President Donald Trump is expected to join this elite jamboree, to be attended by over 3,000 global leaders from business, politics, government, civil society, arts and media, for the second consecutive year

The theme of the event would be ‘Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution’, while there would be several India-focussed sessions. Besides, the country’s political scenario may hog the limelight, with the event taking place after five state polls and ahead of the national election.

“Globalisation as we know it may have peaked, but global integration will continue. It is fueled by the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the urgent need to address challenges such as climate change and biodiversity, job loss through automation and a threatening breakdown in global collaboration,” WEF Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab said in a statement.

“All those changes will particularly affect the next generation. For this reason, it is essential to integrate their voice prominently in building a new sustainable and inclusive global architecture,” he added.

Besides Jaitley, the registered participants from India include Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu and Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.