WEF Annual Meetings

We heard this morning from Israeli President Isaac Herzog on the conflict in Gaza and tensions in the region. He called for the release of Israeli hostages and appealed for the ongoing support of the international community. He also said the normalization process with Israel's Arab neighbours will be "key to the ability to exit from the war into a new horizon". His comments came after Davos heard, yesterday, from Mohammad Mustafa, Chairman of the Palestine Investment Fund. He called for more humanitarian aid to Gaza and a political ...

Blackstone Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Schwarzman said he expects the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates and sees “animal spirits” returning to the markets as more investors make that bet too. The Fed’s timing on rate declines won’t be clear, creating a “baffling effect” among investors, he said in an interview Thursday with Bloomberg TV on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. Nonetheless, “the expectation that interest rates are going down is creating animal spirits again,” he said, referring to the role that ...

When will the Federal Reserve begin to cut interest rates? Will the US economy be able to hit a soft landing? These types of questions dominated conversations at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Here are some highlights from guests on Bloomberg Television.

The Saudi ambassador to the U.S. said at the World Economic Forum on Thursday that any potential normalization agreement with Israel would be conditioned on a ceasefire in Gaza and the creation of an "irrevocable" pathway towards a Palestinian state. Why it matters: Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud echoed what the Biden administration has recently said publicly and privately to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. • White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday that the Biden ...

At a time when European economies face higher borrowing costs and strained public budgets, financial integration in Europe remains lower than before the global financial crisis and Europe's capital markets are less developed than those of other advanced economies. Completing Europe's single market could help on both counts, but why does the political will to do so remain elusive?

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for reforms to global governance. "We can't build a future for our grandchildren with a system built for our grandparents," he said. He warned that geopolitical divisions are hindering a global response to challenges like climate change and artificial intelligence, as he proposed a 'reformed, inclusive, networked multilateralism.' We must ensure that these governance models are more representative of the Global South, too. This was a message echoed in the North-South Schism session that ...

The 54th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum is convening in Davos, Switzerland, against a tense geo-political backdrop. Conflicts in multiple regions continue to threaten global peace and stability while political fragmentation is increasingly taking a toll on other issue areas ranging from the climate crisis to the development of advanced technologies. In Davos, top public and private sector voices as well as leading civil society experts are meeting to discuss how to effectively deal with security crises, such as the ...

Davos 2024 opened with a call for global cooperation. Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explained the diverse and profound challenges the world faces. "At the beginning of the year we come together to analyse the state of the world in a systemic and strategic way and hopefully to find common ground to generate positive impact," he said at today's Welcoming Remarks. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, told us this morning that this is 'a time to drive global ...