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World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2006 in Davos: World Leaders Urged To Seize "The Creative Imperative"

18 January 2006 - Geneva, Switzerland

The World Economic Forum today unveiled the programme for its Annual Meeting in Davos, including the key participants, themes and goals. The overarching theme of the Meeting, from 25 to 29 January, is “The Creative Imperative”.

Speaking at today’s press conference at the World Economic Forum’s headquarters in Geneva, Founder and Executive Chairman Professor Klaus Schwab said, “The Annual Meeting gives all of us a chance to understand and shape the Global Agenda in the year ahead. It is the unique ability of the Annual Meeting to make sense of a rapidly changing world and to connect the seemingly unconnected that joins us all in a common cause. It is this ‘creativity’ in pursuit of the common good that is at the heart of the ‘spirit of Davos’.”

Over the course of the five-day Meeting, 2,340 participants from 89 countries will convene in Davos, including 15 heads of state or government, 60 cabinet ministers, 23 religious leaders, 13 union leaders and more than 30 heads of non-governmental organizations. Around 50% of the participants are business leaders drawn principally from the Forum's members – 1,000 of the foremost companies from around the world and across all economic sectors.

The Annual Meeting will kick off with the “Big Debate” – an interactive session during which participants will exchange their views and experiences. The programme will follow five main themes that are high on the global agenda in 2006. These range from “The Emergence of China and India” and “The Changing Economic Landscape” to “New Mindsets and Changing Attitudes”, “Creating Future Jobs” and “Regional Identities and Struggles”.

Commenting on the Annual Meeting programme, Ged Davis, Managing Director and Head of the Centre for Strategic Insight at the World Economic Forum, said, “It is imperative that we learn how to unleash our creative potential to tackle the world’s problems. The assumptions, tools and frameworks that business, government and civil society leaders have employed to make decisions over the past decade appear in need of renewal. To successfully meet the challenges we face will require an extraordinary collective response. At the centre of the response will be a greater emphasis on human imagination, innovation and creativity. If leaders in business, politics, multinational institutions and civil society are to remain effective and credible they must learn how best to adopt new policy designs and innovative approaches.”

This year sees the highest level of top business participants with 735 of those attending at the CEO or Chairman level - the highest ever. Noting the strong business participation this year, Peter Torreele, Managing Director at the World Economic Forum, said, “Business is always strongly represented at the Annual Meeting at Davos – but in terms of the quality and geographical representation of attendees this is the best ever year. More than 730 chairmen and CEOs from the world’s leading companies will take active part in the discussions, coming from over 70 countries. This year there is a particularly strong Asian representation. Once again, the Annual Meeting will allow business to play a key role in shaping the global agenda.”


Key Participants of the Annual Meeting 2006

The Co-Chairs:
Mukesh D. Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries, India
Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Nestlé, Switzerland
Sir Martin Sorrell, Group Chief Executive, WPP, United Kingdom
Lawrence H. Summers, President, Harvard University, USA

Among the heads of state/government and other public figures:
Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan, Office of the Council of Ministers, Afghanistan; Ahmed Mahmoud Nazif, Prime Minister of Egypt, Office of the Prime Minister of Egypt, Egypt; Angela Merkel, Federal Chancellor of Germany, Federal Chancellery of Germany, Germany; Ibrahim Jaafari, Prime Minister of Iraq, Office of the Prime Minister of Iraq, Iraq; Vaira Vike-Freiberga, President of Latvia, Office of the President of Latvia, Latvia; Fouad Siniora, Prime Minister of Lebanon, Office of the Prime Minister of Lebanon, Lebanon; Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President of Liberia, Council of State of Liberia, Liberia; Armando Emilio Guebuza, President of Mozambique, Office of the President of Mozambique, Mozambique; Olusegun Obasanjo, President of Nigeria, Office of the Head of State of Nigeria, Nigeria; Jens Stoltenberg, Prime Minister of Norway, Office of the Prime Minister of Norway, Norway; Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan, Office of the President of Pakistan, Pakistan; Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, Prime Minister of Poland, Office of the Prime Minister of Poland, Poland; Moritz Leuenberger, President of the Swiss Confederation and Federal Councillor of Environment, Transportation, Energy and Communications, Federal Department of Environment, Transportation, Energy and Communications, Switzerland; Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey, Office of the Prime Minister of Turkey, Turkey; Mohamed M. ElBaradei, Director-General, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, International Atomic Energy Agency, Austria; Javier Solana Madariaga, EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, and Secretary-General, Council of the European Union, Brussels, Council of the European Union, Belgium; Peter Mandelson, Commissioner, Trade, European Commission, Brussels, European Commission, Belgium; Philippe Douste-Blazy, Minister of Foreign Affairs of France, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France, France; Thierry Breton, Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry of France, Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry of France, France; Jean-Claude Trichet, President, European Central Bank, Frankfurt, European Central Bank, Germany; Frank Walter Steinmeier, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany, Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany, Germany; Palaniappan Chidambaram, Minister of Finance of India, Ministry of Finance of India, India; Zeng Peiyan, Vice-Premier of the People's Republic of China, State Council of the People's Republic of China, People's Republic of China; Kim Hyun-Chong, Minister of Trade of the Republic of Korea, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea, Republic of Korea; Aleksey Kudrin, Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, Russian Federation; Pascal Lamy, Director-General, World Trade Organization (WTO), Geneva, World Trade Organization (WTO), Switzerland; Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, HM Treasury of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom; Jack Straw, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom, Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom; Kofi Annan, Secretary-General, United Nations, New York, United Nations, USA; Paul D. Wolfowitz, President, World Bank, Washington DC, World Bank, USA; Robert Zoellick, US Deputy Secretary of State, US Department of State, USA; Robert Portman, US Trade Representative, Office of the US Trade Representative, USA; Michael Chertoff, US Secretary of Homeland Security, Department of Homeland Security, USA

From the world of business:
Craig R. Barrett, Chairman of the Board, Intel Corporation, USA; Sir Richard Branson, Founder and Chairman, Virgin Group Ltd, United Kingdom; John T. Chambers, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cisco Systems Inc., USA; Michael S. Dell, Chairman of the Board, Dell Inc., USA; William H. Gates III, Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation, USA; Carlos Ghosn, President and Chief Executive Officer, Renault, France; President and Chief Executive Officer, Nissan, Japan; E. Neville Isdell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Coca-Cola Company, USA; Abdallah S. Jum'ah, President and Chief Executive Officer, Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia; Lakshmi N. Mittal, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mittal Steel Company, United Kingdom; Nam Joong-Soo, President and Chief Executive Officer, KT Corporation, Republic of Korea; Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, L'Oréal, France; Larry Page, Co-Founder and President, Products, Google Inc., USA; Charles Prince, Chief Executive Officer, Citigroup, USA; Hector de J. Ruiz, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices Inc.), USA; Chen Tonghai, Chairman, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec Corp.), People's Republic of China; Ben J. Verwaayen, Chief Executive Officer, BT Plc, United Kingdom; Werner Wenning, Chairman of the Board of Management, Bayer AG, Germany

Among the more than 53 non-governmental and international organizations participating in the Annual Meeting): Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam GB, International save the Children Alliance, CARE International, Islamic Relief, World Vision International, Greenpeace International, Open Society Institute, and WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature.

Top Labour Leaders include Sharan Burrow, President, Australian Council of Trade Unions, Australia, and President of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.

Personalities from the cultural world coming to Davos include Bono, Musician, DATA (Debt, AIDS and Trade in Africa), United Kingdom; Paulo Coelho, Author, Brazil; Peter B. Gabriel, Musician, Real World, United Kingdom; Angelina Jolie, UN Refugee Ambassador, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Geneva.

Representatives of the world’s media will also be represented at the Annual Meeting, with 15% of the participants drawn from media organizations around the world. Media representatives will have access to every session at the Annual Meeting. Additionally, this year the Forum will invite every participant to join its weblog and will be podcasting key sessions. As in previous years, more than 40 sessions will be webcast.

For the first time ever, the World Economic Forum will integrate sports leaders into the Annual Meeting. The Forum is providing a platform to the most important sports leaders to discuss issues on the global agenda. Sessions will consider sport’s role as a tool for development, key for economic growth and an unquestionable socio-political actor.

Some of the participants include: Joseph Blatter, President, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA); Jacques Rogge, President, International Olympic Committee (IOC); Larry Scott, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, WTA Tour; David Stern, Commissioner, National Basketball Association (NBA); Muhammad Ali, Former Heavyweight-Boxing Champion; and Edson Arantes (Pelé) Nascimento, World Cup Soccer Champion, Ernesto Bertarelli, President of Alinghi and Navigator, Winner of the America’s Cup 2003.

Notes to Editors:
· Everything about the Annual Meeting 2006 can be found here: www.weforum.org/annualmeeting
· Here are the key Participants: www.weforum.org/annualmeeting/participants
· In-depth Interviews with key business participants are here: www.weforum.org/annualmeeting/indepth
· The entire Programme can be downloaded here: www.weforum.org/annualmeeting/programme
· Follow the discussions and read the Session summaries once the Annual Meeting starts here: www.weforum.org/annualmeeting/summaries2006
· Watch the key debates live in our Webcasts at: www.weforum.org/annualmeeting/webcasts
· Download key debates as Podcasts or Audio Blogs at: www.weforum.org/annualmeeting/podcasts
· Leave your comments in our Weblog at: www.forumblog.org
· Subscribe to or download Press Releases here: www.weforum.org/pressreleases
Download print-quality high resolution Photographs of the Annual Meeting free of charge here: www.swiss-image.ch/forum (login: world; password: forum)

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