Opening Plenary of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2009
Opening address by Vladimir Putin, Hans-Rudolf Merz, Klaus Schwab, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Michael S. Dell, Carlos Ghosn

Live blogging through the Plenary session that includes Vladimir Putin

• Schwab is opening, speaking of the world wide imapct on the economy on people, institutions and countries

• Putin:
• speaks of the notion of a perfect storm of circumstances that have affected the entire global economy
• majority of countries especially the US that ignored the problem – 1 year ago representatives of the US stood at Davos and indicated the economy was strong.  Now without apportioning blame we must accept reality
• insufficient regulation is a cause of the crisis
• one centre prints the money while the other part of the world makes the goods and saves the money they make.  Clearly aimed at US and China
• degenerated wealth was not distributed equally
• inflated expectations both consumers and business.  Consumer prosperity was borrower prosperity.
• during the crisis simple and populous recipes were tempting, but made the situation worse – we should avoid any steps that we will regret later
• we cannot be economically egotistic
• protectionism – must be careful [ I think to avoid]
• temptation to expand the state into the economy with anti crisis – result in concentration of government within the economy. Russia had that and I believe “no-one is willing to repeat our mistake”
• should have personal responsibility – not state responsibility
• tempting to use the government money – not inexhaustible and not necessarily efficient way
• we are far from understanding the real state of the crisis
• critical to identify the results of our actions [moral hazard]
• bonuses and prestige are too important
• together with cleaning up balance sheets – get rid of virtual money – illusionist money
• basis for the reform based on accounting, fudnamental of assets – ability to generate value added – not some subjective notions
• an economy of real value – ik do not have the full answer- that is why we are here
• we need a number of reserve currencies – smooth transition
• mutual interest and mutual trust required – more openness between economies
• macroeconomic disciplines
• a system based on global international regulators within international law
• more just and efficient architecture
• all countries should have a guaranteed access to this new central architecture

energy

• future problems – energy shortgages
• global energy security
• mutual dependencies based on sharing of assets
• countries forget about agreements when it suits them
• done properly could bring economic benefit
• tie together producers and consumers based on partnership
• fluctuations in prices is bad for everyone, and produces irrational use of resources
• return to balanced prices, balanced between demand and supply
• commonly acceptable market prices, re hydrocarbons, nuclear and electricity
• energy security of Europe – speaking of Black Sea and Baltic capacity – considering increase in capacity with Mitsubishi at Sakhalin (contested island near Japan)
• talking a lot about pipelines and what Russia has built to offer energy to the Europe
• in the course of projects we must consider the programme related to the environment

Crisis impact on Russia

• Russia has reserves
• expanding technology and innovation in enhancing energy usage
• listing a few items Russia is doing internally to become more efficient
• highly educated nation but we would like Russians to get the education they need to keep improving
• looking to attract foreign students and academics

other

• military expenditures does create jobs, but it is short term
• in reality militarization does not help us
• investment could be used better
• i hope that we can develop this point of view and get disarmament agreements to be able to realign this investments
• Mumbia, Gaza Georgia -reflective of inability for governments to help ethnic and local problems
• provoking regional conflicts is a way of distracting people attention from real economic issues
• we need global agreements on this
• join efforts
• reduce the repurcussion on the world food crisis
• Russia willing to help with our world partners
• wish success to new administration in US
• pleotora of problems is extremely complex – seek support in moral vlaue, honesty, responsbility, spiritual and material resource – mutual trust

banking sector

• I would expand – confidence in banks and countries – required to achieve prosperity in 21st Century

UPDATE:  Micahel Dell mentioned he was struck by Putin speaking less government involvement.