Davos forum to address financial crisis, other global challenges

WEF Executive Chairman and founder Klaus
Schwab addresses a news conference in Cologny, near Geneva, January 21,
2009. This year's World Economic Forum Annual Meeting is called "Shaping
the Post-Crisis World" and it will be held from January 28 to February 1,
2009 in the Swiss alpine resort of Davos. (Xinhua/Reuters
Photo)
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Gallery

GENEVA, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The World Economic Forum
(WEF) will open its annual meeting in Davos next week with an aim to address a
series of global challenges, particularly the financial and economic crisis, the
organization said on Wednesday.

As well as looking at the immediate crisis and ways
to stabilize and relaunch the global economy, the meeting program also pinpoints
a number of interrelated global risks including climate change, food and water
security, it said in a statement.

The meeting will also consider the institutions that
the world needs to cooperate and confront global challenges and will look to
improve the ethnical value base for business as a constructive social actor, it
added.

According to the Geneva-based non-profit foundation,
the overarching theme of the 2009 annual meeting, which will take place from
Jan. 28 to Feb. 1 in the Swiss skiing resort, is "Shaping the Post-Crisis
World."

It will attract more than 2,500 participants from 96
countries, including a record 43 heads of state or government.

Among the world leaders taking part in the meeting,
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will
address participants on the opening day.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown and Premier Taro Aso of Japan will also address sessions
of the meeting.

Other public figures include 17 ministers of finance,
19 central bankers, 22 trade ministers, 16 ministers of foreign affairs, 15
ministers of environment and energy, nine EU commissioners and the heads of 30
international organizations.

Business leaders from all sectors and from all
regions will also be well represented at the meeting.

"The Annual Meeting 2009 is one of the most crucial
in the near 40 year history of the World Economic Forum," said Klaus Schwab,
founder and executive chairman of the organization.

"The extraordinary participation ...demonstrates that
our annual meeting will be the place where key actors can address both a crisis
of unprecedented scope and, at the same time, the sort of world we collectively
want to see emerging once the crisis is over," Schwab told a media
briefing.