WEF 2013: Focus on restoring growth and confidence in leaders

The World Economic Forum is getting underway in Davos Switzerland. CCTV’s Jack Barton reports from Davos where the theme of this year’s gathering is "resilient dynamism", which the forum’s founder Klaus Schwab says is aimed at helping "burned out" business and political leaders move on from crisis management and get back on track.

Hundreds of the world’s leaders in politics, banking, business and academia are gathering in Davos Switzerland for this year’s Word Economic Forum.

The meeting comes as the Eurozone as a whole remains mired in recession and the US still faces part two of its fiscal cliff.

It also comes on the heels of two world economic forum surveys that reveal while overall confidence in the global economy has improved this year, confidence among the general public in the sincerity of politicians and business leaders is now in the low teens.

The forum’s founder says its time to start rebuilding that trust and the global economy.

Klaus Schwab, Founder & Exec. Chairman of World Economic Forum, said, "What I see is that many politicians have a kind of burn out syndrome, which means it was just too much they had to cope with. That’s my concern. So to put them back on track, to look at the future, that’s the objective which we have."

This year companies are already going out of their way to rebuild trust and demonstrate that Davos is about dialogue and not just skiing and red carpet events.

Klaus Schwab sees the recovery in the US and recent calm in the Eurozone as compelling reasons to this year shift from damage control to spurring growth.

"Because we have been caught too much in pessimism and crisis management, now is the time to move out, to be more dynamic again, to look at the future. We have a responsibility to shape the future - that’s the purpose of Davos. But on the other hand, we have to be aware we are, and will always be, confronted with risks, that’s inherent in a global system. So we have to prepare better for those risks." Klaus Schwab said.

So the challenge for this meeting appears to be… restore economic growth, while also restoring confidence in the forum itself.

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