World's Elite Visit Davos in Doubt

Forty heads of state signed up to attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum that begins Tuesday in Davos, Switzerland. They will be focusing on the current disarray of the world's financial economy. The International Monetary Fund is recalculating its estimate of global growth and is likely to lower it to less than 1%.

"Why are we surprised all the time, almost weekly" by bad financial news, said Victor Halberstadt, professor of economics at Leiden University in the Netherlands and a veteran of the Davos event. "Do we really understand too little about the economy? I'm afraid the answer may be 'yes,' and that is why policy makers are going to Davos."

Right now, they are expecting about 2,500 participants for this mega-economic conference. More than 1,400 chief executives and chairmen of companies are making the trip despite the deep slump in corporate revenues and stock markets.

"This may be the first Davos where capitalism is widely viewed as a failure, rather than something to be admired," says Ethan Kapstein, professor of economics and political science at French business school Insead, who has been going to Davos since 1994.

"The capitalist myth is lovely and youthful. It kicked off the industrial revolution, but maybe we need a new one," says Richard Olivier

Right now things are looking bleak in the word economy. If the less than one percent forecast for the world economy holds true it will surely lead to additional problems and drops in the stock market. The conference will discuss the real fear worldwide--global deflation. Or worse, stagflation.

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FACTBOX-Details on World Economic Forum meeting in Davos

Jan 26 (Reuters) - The world's business and political elite will hold its annual meeting in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos this week in the shadow of the global financial crisis.

Here are some key facts on the World Economic Forum:

* SOME FACTS ABOUT THE 2009 MEETING:

-- Over 2,500 participants from 96 countries will gather in Davos. Over 55 percent are business chiefs, drawn principally from the Forum's Members and the 1,000 foremost companies from around the world and across economic sectors.

-- Also attending are around 250 public figures, including 41 heads of state or government, 60 ministers, 30 heads or senior officials of international organizations and 10 ambassadors.

-- Fifty heads or representatives of non-governmental organizations will also attend, as well as 225 media leaders, 215 figures from academic institutions and think tanks, 10 religious leaders of different faiths and 10 trade unionists.

* AIMS:

-- The World Economic Forum, founded in 1971 is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas.

* A SHORT TIMELINE OF ACHIEVEMENTS AT DAVOS:

1979 - The Forum becomes the first non-governmental institution to initiate a partnership with China's economic development commissions.

1988 - Prime Ministers Andreas Papandreou of Greece and Turgut Ozal of Turkey embark on a peace initiative, setting up a crisis "hot-line" and vowing to avoid war.

1994 - Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat talk late into the night over the delayed Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho and one aide talked of "an atmosphere of compromise".

1999 - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan announces the "Global Compact," to give "a human face to the global market" at the Forum's annual meeting.

-- Annan called on business leaders to set global labour, human rights and environmental standards and said, "We have to choose between a global market driven only by calculations of short-term profit, and one which has a human face."

2001 - Microsoft Corp boss Bill Gates pledges $100 million to help develop an African AIDS vaccine which could be ready within five years.

2002 - The Forum provides a platform for the creation of a Disaster Resource Network, leveraging engineering and transportation industry firms' resources to assist with disaster relief efforts.

2005 - Actress Sharon Stone raises $1 million in five minutes for malaria at the Davos summit, while Britain's Tony Blair shared a platform with rock star Bono and world's richest man Bill Gates to pledge aid to Africa.

2006 - The international dispute over Iran's nuclear ambitions, militant attacks on oil facilities in Nigeria and Russia's gas disputes with its neighbours raised the profile of energy supply security.

-- Trade ministers from around the world said there was a new sense that progress had to be made on all outstanding issues relating to the so-called Doha round of talks, which aim to help poor nations out of poverty by lowering trade barriers.

* LAST YEAR'S GATHERING:

-- Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda unveiled a five-year, $10 billion fund to support efforts in developing countries to combat global warming.

-- The Forum Member companies and the U.N. launched initiatives to facilitate broader and deeper private sector support of humanitarian relief operations.

-- Some key ministers gave the Doha talks new impetus when they agreed at Davos, against a background of concern about the global economy, to meet later with a view to reaching a final trade deal that would add confidence by the end of 2008. Trade ministers did get close to a major breakthrough at a meeting in Geneva in July, but that effort collapsed over a farm trade dispute between the United States and India. (Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit;)