KATHMANDU, Nov 21: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli will travel to Switzerland in the third week of January 2019 to participate in the World Economic Forum’s 2019 Annual Meeting in Davos, sources said on Wednesday.
Leading a high-powered delegation, the prime minister will leave for Switzerland on January 21 to attend the WEF forum; officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) told Republica Online.
In a letter to the WEF secretariat via Nepal’s Permanent Mission to United Nations in Geneva, the ministry confirmed the prime minister’s participation at the WEF’s annual meeting taking place on January 22-25 in Davos, the officials involved in the visit preparations said.
A source at the Prime Minister’s secretariat said that the visit has been confirmed. “The visit will be endorsed by the Cabinet soon,” the source added.
PM likely to visit Switzerland in January
Oli’ Foreign Relations Advisor Rajan Bhattarai said that preparations are being made regarding the prime minister’s visit to Switzerland.
“The official announcement of the visit will be made in due course,” Bhattarai told on Wednesday. Oli will be visiting Switzerland at the invitation of Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of WEF.
The WEF’s annual meeting will be taking place under the theme “Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution”.
Meanwhile, the government officials are making efforts to make the prime minister's visit bilateral one. Sources said that Oli is likely to hold bilateral talks with Swiss President Alain Berset during his stay.
Apart from attending the WEF’s annual meeting, Oli is likely to meet world leaders on the sidelines. The WEF, which was founded in 1971 as a not-for-profit foundation, hosts its annual meeting in Davos every year in January.
On November 5, the international organization announced its annual meeting in Geneva in a press statement.
“We are just at the beginning of Globalization 4.0, and are significantly underprepared for the magnitude of change we are facing. We are still approaching issues of globalization with an outdated mindset. Tinkering with our existing processes and institutions will not be enough. We need to redesign them so that we can capitalize on the abundance of new opportunities that await us, while also avoiding the kinds of disruptions that we are witnessing today,” Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, said in the official announcement regarding the forum.
Under the rubric of Globalization 4.0, there will be a series of “Global Dialogues” in Davos to develop recommendations by the internationally relevant and knowledgeable individuals and institutions that are shaping the future, which include members of the World Economic Forum’s Board of Trustees, according to the statement.
The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting brings together governments, international organizations, business, civil society, media, foremost experts and the young generation from all over the world in more than 400 working sessions. It engages over 100 governments and 1,000 companies at the highest leadership levels.
