OPINION | World Economic Forum
While the premier’s speech received
a warm welcome in sub-zero Davos,
corridors were abuzz with talk of its
possible implications, ranging from
China’s contribution to future global
prosperity to the country’s influence on
regional integration initiatives.
TRADE WARS BEWARE
“I think we should try not to talk ourselves
into a trade war,” said Roberto Azevêdo,
Director-General of the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) as he discussed the
future of open trade. It was a plea echoed
by a number of others throughout the
week. “It is difficult to overstate the extent
to which this return to pure power politics
in international economic relations would
represent a break from the past 70 years
of rule-based integration,” over a dozen
ministers gathered in Davos concluded.
In a bid to settle nerves, Trump’s envoy
to Davos Anthony Scaramucci vowed that
the new US leader wanted trade, not war,
through a “strong bilateral relationship”
based on “more symmetry” in trade deals.
Anthony Scaramucci, Donald
Trump’s envoy to Davos
FIXING GLOBALISATION
Globalisation, and by implication the trade
and investment frameworks that help to
underpin it, needs to be improved. This
was the message carried by numerous
speakers as they debated whether and
how to better communicate the benefits of
globalisation – and, more critically, how to
make it work effectively for all.
“One of the things we are going to
have to come to terms with here is that
there have been significant losses [from
globalisation] and it is not clear to me that
we are going to be able to remedy them
under the current infrastructure,” said
economist Dambisa Moyo in a panel on
Governing Globalisation. R
DIRECTOR OF FINANCE
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