| Ê Print this Page |
 Email Article |
Share Story |
WORLD |
||
World Leaders Annual Meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos |
||
|
Philippine President joins world’s leaders at annual meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos DAVOS, Switzerland – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will attend Jan. 31, the 2009 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) which started inviting political leaders to its annual meetings in 1974. The annual meetings are the “flagship event” of the non-profit-foundation WEF which is based in Cologny, Geneva, Switzerland. The President will grace the WEF’s plenary session on rebooting the global economy at 3 p.m. Davos time (10 p.m. in Manila) at the Davos Congress Center. The WEF’s Annual Meetings in Davos, Switzerland bring together top business leaders, international political leaders, selected intellectuals and journalists “to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world including health and the environment.” |
||
| ||
|
In the same meeting room at the Congress Center, President Arroyo will witness the awarding of the “Finance Minister of the Year Award” to Finance Secretary Margarito Teves. By nightfall, the President shall head for Klosters town where she and the Philippine delegation are billeted. There, she will meet with Filipino businessman Jaime Zobel at the Walserhof; and then grace the dinner to be tendered for her and her delegation at the Chesca Grischuna by Maurice Amon of SICPA. The President was also here last year for the WEF’s Annual Meeting 2008 which would later recognize her in its post-meeting report as one of “some 250 public figures” who graced it. “In 2008, some 250 public figures (heads of state or government, cabinet ministers, ambassadors, heads or senior officials of international organizations) attended the Annual Meeting, including: Abdoulaye Wade, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Ban Ki-moon, Condoleezza Rice, Ferenc Gyurcsany, François Fillon, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Gordon Brown, Hamid Karzai, Ilham Aliyev, Jan Peter Balkenende, Lee Hsien Loong, Pervez Musharraf, Queen Rania of Jordan, Salam Fayyad, Sali Berisha, Shimon Peres, Umaru Musa Yar'adua, Valdas Adamkus, Yasuo Fukuda, Viktor A. Yushchenko and Zeng Peiyan. “Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Bono, Paulo Coelho and Tony Blair are also regular Davos attendees. Past attendees include: Angela Merkel, Dmitry Medvedev, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Mandela Raymond Barre and Yasser Arafat,” the report added. The WEF started out in 1971 as the European Management Forum organized by Klaus M. Schwab, then a professor of Business Policy at the University of Geneva. Prof. Schwab “invited 444 executives from Western European firms to the first European Management Symposium held in the (then) recently built Davos Congress Centre.” “Under the patronage of the European Commission and European industrial associations, Schwab wanted to introduce European firms to US management practices. He then founded the European Management Forum as a non-profit organization based in Geneva and drew European business leaders to Davos for their annual meeting each January.” The WEF said Schwab “developed the ‘stakeholder’ management approach which based corporate success on managers taking account of all interests: not merely shareholders, clients and customers, but employees and the communities within which the firm is situated, including governments.” “Events in 1973, namely the collapse of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate mechanism and the Arab-Israeli War saw the annual meeting expand its focus from major issues, and political leaders were invited for the first time to Davos in January 1974,” the WEF added. Bretton Woods institutions include the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In 1987, some 16 years after its founding, the European Management Forum (EMF) changed its name to the World Economic Forum and “sought to broaden its vision further to include providing a platform for resolving international conflicts.” The Forum prides itself as being “impartial and not-for-profit and is not tied to any political, partisan or national interests.” "Committed to improving the State of the World," the Forum is funded by its 1000 member companies, with the “typical member company” being a “global enterprise with more than five billion dollars in turnover, although the latter can vary by industry and region…” “In addition, these enterprises rank among the top companies within their industry and/or country (generally based on turnover in millions of US dollars; for financial institutions the criteria is based on assets) and play a leading role in shaping the future of their industry and/or region, as judged by the Forum's selection committee,” according to the WEF. The Forum’s Industry Partners “come from a broad range of business sectors, including construction, aviation, technology, tourism, food and beverage, engineering, and financial services. These companies are alert to the global issues that most affect their specific industry sector.” |
 |
The Philippine American Cultural Foundation of South Florida, Inc. (PACFSF), a South Florida-based non-profit organization announced the purchase of 20 acres of land in Okeechobee, Florida to be the home of its Philippine Heritage Enrichment Complex.
»
TETRIS is one of the world’s most popular casual computer games with over 125 million products sold on more than 30 platforms and available in more than 50 countries. Video game industry legends Henk Rogers and Alexey Pajitnov today announced the kickoff of the 25th anniversary celebration for TETRIS®."
» 