Belarusian officials not invited for Davos Forum
- 28.01.2009, 10:38
The World Economic Forum begins today in Davos, Switzerland. None of the Belarusian officials was invited.
The main theme of the forum will be "Shaping the Post-Crisis World”. Its founder Klaus Schwab said this summit would become historical due to its theme and the number of participants.
According to organizers, the summit is to gather more than 2,500 governmental officials, representatives of business elites and public associations from nearly 100 countries. 43 heads of state and government are expected to come. Among them are British prime minister Gordon Brown, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev, Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko. The Russian delegation is headed by prime minister Vladimir Putin. According to Klaus Schwab, the forum is to become a “sanatorium” helping the world financial and economic system recover.
The press services of Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affaires, and the government told they didn’t have any information about participation of Belarus’s representatives in the forum in Davos.
“We can’t save on this. We can save on cycle tracks. This is an economic intelligence, estimation of the situation. It’s bad that we don’t go there. We should keep in time with the world economy. One of our diseases is provincialism. Provincial ministers, provincial officials. They need to be shaken up,” Leanid Zaika, director of Strategy analytical centre, said in an interview to Radio Svaboda.
By the way, in 1998, Alyaksandr Lukashenka visited a business forum in Krans Montana, which can be compared with the one in Davos. However, that trip can be remembered due to a scandal. When head of Belarus was speaking, one of the participants of the forum called Lukashenka a dictator and said he would end his life as other dictators. Insulted, Lukashenka left the meeting.
The World Economic Forum holds annual meetings at a famous Davos ski resort. In 2002, the meeting was held in New York as solidarity to the US after terroristic attacks on September 11, 2001. Davos gathers the most influential people of the world and gives an opportunity for political opponents unofficially.