 So, hi everyone, and welcome really to our panel on the global economic outlook. Now the global economy was certainly tested in 2023 as it rarely has been before inflation and the most aggressive monetary tightening campaign in decades, wars in Europe and in the Middle East, a festering real estate crisis in China and the deepening rivalry between Washington and Beijing, which is really forcing companies also to rethink supply chains and security. Despite these pain points, the post-pandemic global recovery has actually managed to roll on. In the US, consumers defied expectations and kept spending, prompting many economists to ditch their downside scenarios and forecasts on a rare soft landing. In China, the booming electric vehicle industry, along with a healthy dose of fiscal stimulus, helped leaders stick close to their growth targets, and the world's economy, Great New Hope India, also took up some of the slack. But overall, according to the World Bank, the global economy is dragging along at growth rates slower than previous decades, and this is as a post-pandemic rebound is weighing down by a high interest rates. So we're looking at sluggish trade, geopolitical tensions that will hit developing countries hardest. So without giving you a pessimist guide to 2024, we want to look at some of the main pressure points, some of the growth foundations for the future, and of course there are many elections and expectations on future trajectory. For your social media, you can also do hashtag WEF24. So this is our all-star panel, Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, Christian Lindner, Federal Minister of Finance of Germany, Mohammed El-Jaddan, Minister of Finance of Saudi Arabia, President Tharman Sharmugartam, the President of Singapore, Dr. Ngozi Okonji-Iwela, Director General of the World Trade Organization, and David Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Carlisle. So thank you all for joining us. Mr. President, let me start off with you. 2023 really surprised, expectations to the upside. Is the global economy really now as resilient as we think? Well, we have to think about it not on a year-to-year basis because the largest challenges to resilience that we face are what's creeping beneath. It's the slow-moving changes that threaten us in a far more fundamental way in the years to come. We know what they are. We know what's happening in the shift in the global ecological balance. We know what's happening in terms of the ageing of societies, which we are by and large not prepared for. We know what's happening in the gradual drift towards polarization. These are the real threats to resilience and to human security. And I'm not even talking about the wars, including the stupid wars that we see. Thank you so much. Madame Lagal, can you talk to us about what you saw in 2023 that gives you hope for economies in the future? Well, good morning to everyone first. And thank you for having me on the panel because I'm a strange panelist, actually, because I cannot talk about the things that I spend 100% of my time on. I'm a Central Bank President for the European Central Bank. We have a monetary policy meeting coming up on Wednesday and Thursday. And during one week before that, I cannot talk about what I do, what I hope for, what the analysis supporting our conclusions is. So, I thought long and hard. And I tried to identify a few of the trends that we have seen in 2023 that will have no impact on our decision next week and what we should sort of anticipate for the future. And I came around to something that I called normalization. That's what we have beginning to see, especially in the end of 2023, but towards something that is not going to be normality. So, from normalization to non-normality. So, what do I mean by that? The period before 2023 was strange, extraordinary, difficult to analyze by many accounts. In 2023, we have seen the beginning of normalization. When you look at consumption, for instance, around the world, I'm not talking just about the euro area. Consumption is still a driving force for growth, but the tailwind that we had the benefit of are gradually fading. This very strange, extremely tight labor market, still tight, but a little less. And some of the indices that we use to identify the relationship, particularly between vacancies and unemployment, are changing gradually. So, less tightness on the job market. When we look at savings around the world, there was plenty of it. Excess saving, with that excess saving, pretty much in all advanced economies in particular, is coming down. And from this 10% excess saving, we're getting close to virtually zero. So, if you combine these two, job less tight, savings diminishing, clearly consumption is not as strong a force as it used to be. That's one thing. The second thing, which is also beginning to normalize, and I hope Ngozi will talk a lot about that, is trade. Trade went down and was massively disrupted by this goods versus services versus good over the course of the last two years preceding 2023. But it is beginning now to really pick up. And in October, we had global trade numbers that, for the first time in many months, was up. And the pattern of trade is changing, but I will leave it to my friend Ngozi to describe that better. And the third normalization, and I have to say that, is that around the world, not including the euro area, around the world, inflation is coming down. And we have seen it yet again in November, both headline inflation and core inflation. So that's what I call the normalization that we have observed in 2023. And maybe you'll give me the floor another time to talk about how it is not normality that we're heading to. We'll certainly, we'll talk about that. Dr. Ngozi, could you talk to us a bit about the resilience that you've seen in global supply chains and trade? Well, thank you. I think Christine has set me up nicely. Let's see if I can, if I can move on that. It is true that in 2023, trade was considerably down. Actually, we, good trade, we had to revise our forecast down from 1.7% for the year to 0.8%. In the last quarter, as you said, we saw an optic in the numbers and trade showed a recovery led by automobiles and components and parts. So, but all in all, when we look at the first three quarters and the last quarter, we still think we're coming at about the number we projected or slightly less than that. We had been more optimistic about 2024 and we were forecasting a considerably, a considerable recovery to 3.3%. So like Christine said, maybe moving towards normalization or how you put it, but not normal, because trade growth is still below trend, is still trending below GDP growth. But the problem that I have is the geopolitical conflicts that we now see. The problem in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, we also have problems in the Panama Canal because of climate change. There are so many uncertainties and of course all the elections that we see around the world and what that may bring. I think there are a lot of uncertainties that make forecasting difficult. However, I'll take a bit of a risk and say I think it will be better than 2023. We may not come in at 3.3% below that, but much better than what we saw in 2023, unless a major war breaks out, then all bets are off. Thank you, Dr. Ngozi. Minister Lindner, Germany has prospered in parts for many years from buying energy from Russia and selling cars to China. All of that is changing also because China is making so many EVs. How do you marry the two? Given the historic shocks we have seen the last year, the global economy has shown remarkable resilience and the German economy has shown resilience as well. Think about the energy situation you have mentioned. We had to reinvent the German energy infrastructure and supply in the last 18 months. And so we have not the gross perspective we are expecting, but our economy has shown these resilience. Looking to what will come over the next years, Christine said, okay, we are in the process of normalization. I would say we are witnessing a new normal. And 2023 marks this new normal. Think about the rays of artificial intelligence. We all have discussing here in Davos. Think about the geopolitical tension and the threat of fragmentation. We will have to deal with over the next years. The higher debt levels after the pandemic and the energy price hikes, which has shrunk our fiscal space to finance transformation. And given the very little gross perspective of the global economy, we have to answer the question how we will be able in the future to finance transition by the private capital markets and how to fight poverty around the world. So for me, it's not normalization. It is a new normal which we have to be prepared for and has 2023 given me hope. You asked, I would put it this way, it was a call for action because we have to rearrange some policies and probably we see a new need for structural reforms. Probably we are at the beginning of an era of new structural reforms. Minister Algidan, what do you see as the main risks compared to maybe the resilience that we saw last year? There are a few things I think I would just put possibly from what I have heard a little bit of context. Obviously there are the immediate risks that will be obvious, which is geopolitics, fragmentation, and obviously the debt situation, particularly in low-income countries. And we are talking about them and we realize that they actually pose risks but that will add to inflation and monetary tightening. But these are the immediate ones. We need to attend to them. But then I think we need to make sure that we also attend to the medium term. I mean, the projections that we have seen from the World Bank or the IMF clearly suggest that this decade would be the lowest growth potential for the world economy compared to the first decade of this century and the second decade. And yesterday, Ajay Banga said in one of the panels a very nice statement that caught him. He said, these are projections, they are not our destiny. And therefore we should actually see what can we do to form our destiny by actually changing the way we do things by adopting policies that will actually fuel growth. These are very important and again in relation to low-income countries. Low-income countries are actually coming under a serious crunch of debt and for them to be able to grow, they need to invest. And for them to invest, they need to restructure their debt and allow them access to money that they can then fuel their own growth, which will help the rest of the world. Thank you so much. David Rubenstein, what do you worry about the most in 2024? There are many things to worry about. Well, I worry about everything. But I would say the most important thing I wanted to convey is that predictions made in January about what's going to happen in the remainder of the year is generally wrong. Last year at this time, here in other forums around the world, people were predicting the U.S. would likely have a hard landing, if not a hard landing, a soft landing, but a soft landing implies very low growth. As it turns out, while the numbers aren't really in yet, the U.S. will have grown probably around 2.5 percent for 2023, which is much better than anybody really projected at the time. The U.S. has its challenges for sure, but inflation is coming down. And as a result of that, the Federal Reserve is likely to reduce interest rates relatively in the near future. In our country, we have a presidential election. I think everybody probably recognizes that. And as a result, the Federal Reserve wants to get its, I think wants to get its rate cuts out of the way before the presidential election is in full steam. Because if you have rate cuts in right before a presidential election, it will be seen as helping the candidate who's in the White House, because it'll gin up the economy as the theory. And so the Republican nominee would not be happy with that. So the Fed is going to get three rate cuts in or more this year, as I expect it will. It will have to get those done relatively in the first quarter, certainly in the first half. So you can expect to see rate cuts. And that will probably drive the U.S. economy. During presidential election years, the U.S. economy generally does pretty well. We tend not to be in recessions in presidential election years, because Congress spends a lot of money and the Fed tends to be relatively easy on monetary policy during presidential election years. The biggest risk for the U.S. economy is the usual risks that everybody has. Are we going to be in a war somewhere, something like that? Is there going to be another pandemic? But it's really like we look in the mirror and the enemy is us. Because the biggest risk we really have is the dysfunction of the U.S. government, our inability to pass appropriation bills that fund the government on time, the inability of the deal with the debt limit issues on time. Those are the biggest things that worry me, whether at some point the U.S. government just can't get these issues done because of the political problems we have in the country. And as a result, I worry more about that than other things in terms of the U.S. economy going forward. We will have a presidential election year and almost everything every candidate will say will probably not be true about what will happen in the future, as they probably won't be able to get done what they say they're going to get done, but it will be interesting to watch. But David, a number of leaders have expressed concern of what Donald Trump in the White House means for fragmentation, for foreign policy. Is there any way that the rest of the world can Trump proof their economies? If somebody has a way to do that, I think they should patent it and probably sell it to somebody else. That would be very difficult to do. Clearly, the biggest political change that occurred in the United States last year also was unpredictable or unpredicted, I should say. I don't think anybody outside of the Trump family would have predicted that Donald Trump would be indicted four times, 91 counts on various indictments, and that his popularity would soar to the point where he has a reasonably good chance of locking up the Republican nomination by March, which is earlier than any contested presidential candidate has been able to lock up the Republican nomination. If he is nominated, be the first time ever that a Republican party has nominated the same person three times in a row. He clearly has a following that many of the analysts missed, and I don't think any of the court cases are likely to change his momentum. So I think people should recognize that he's a serious political force and should not discount the fact that he could well be elected again, despite the fact that many people in Europe, where we are now, are not really his biggest fans. And so I wouldn't rule out his possibly getting elected again. Joe Biden shouldn't be discounted. Obviously, we have two older candidates. People have suggested to me that I should run for president, but I say I'm only 74, and you need to be older to run. But I do think to be very serious, it'll be a relatively close election. And the final comment is, in our country in the last two presidential elections, 45 states out of the 50 voted exactly the same way in each of those two elections. Only five states voted differently. Those five states are Arizona, Georgia, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Those five states are the only ones that voted differently in those two elections. Right now, Donald Trump has had all five of those states. He lost all five of those states last time. Hillary Clinton lost those five states as well. Biden won them last time. So everything will get down to those five states. And right now, if the election were held today, it would be difficult to see how Trump would lose that election today. But it's a long way away. And the most important thing you can say about presidential elections in our country is things change all the time. And we won't know for sure, probably until about a month before the election, where it's really going to go. So, Minister Lindner, how should Europe prepare? And again, how difficult is it as a finance minister to look at models? This is for Minister Lindner. How difficult is it to look at models to forecast, given all the crises, given the elections? And actually, you don't really know what you're left with in 12 months. But I think we are talking too much about Donald Trump in Europe. And we should prepare ourselves for a possible second term for Donald Trump by fostering our European competitiveness. Doing our homework is the best preparation for a possible second term of Donald Trump. And this includes our capabilities to defend ourselves. Being an attractive partner on eye level when it comes to the economic situation and it comes to a fair burden sharing under the roof of NATO is the best we can do to be in a good partnership with the United States. And then it doesn't matter which administration, if we are attractive, if we do not have to ask others because we have capabilities ourselves, it's the best way to cooperate. And this is completely for both possible outcomes of the election in the United States, doing our homework. Madam Lagal? I'd love to follow up on what Christian is saying. I think the best defense, if that's the way we want to look at it, is attack. And to attack properly, you need to be strong at home. So being strong means having a strong, deep market, having a real single market, and we should be expecting some suggestions by Enrico Letta, former Prime Minister of Italy, who is in charge of producing this report, on how we can deepen and improve the functioning of that single market, which is a huge economic zone in the world, but which is not completely a single market yet, as many CEOs I'm sure experience on a daily basis. And we should more importantly make sure that the money that is saved in Europe, or the money that is associated with pension, is actually invested in a capital market union that actually functions efficiently to rally the investment that we badly need for the transition towards a greener economy, which relies certainly for a period of time on fossil fuel, but less so, as was indicated in the last COP28, and moves towards renewable where investment is badly needed. Just one little aspect, because I am grateful that Christine has mentioned the capital markets union. I'm concerned that some policymakers in the European Union tend to follow the United States to subsidize almost everything, but we have to avoid a subsidy raise. We cannot afford. I'm curious of the next US administration can continue the way they support their economy. I wonder if it's sustainable to pay so high subsidies, but what we have to do is to improve our framework conditions for our economies and to make further progress in capital markets union, our competitive disadvantage compared to the US is not subsidies. It's the function of our private capital market. Mr. President, Singapore is of course a country that does well when the world is working well together, less well when China and the US are falling apart. So what's your take on this US-China stress? Well, I think the US-China relationship is the central axis of tension when you look at the largest problems we face in the world, and it has to be refashioned into the central axis of partnership. They look at each other fundamentally as adversaries, and then they look for opportunities to cooperate within that framework. It has to be flipped around. Fundamentally they have to be partners because the challenges that they both face are the same, climate change, a lack of global order, a breaking up of the global trading system. The challenges that both of them face and both of them will suffer for it, and the two are absolutely essential to any solution to climate, to peace, and to an open global trading system. And then within that you can argue, you can badger, you can ensure fair competition, you can ensure that there's a way of dealing with each other that's consistent with the principles of openness and fair play. But we've got to flip things around where you're not fundamentally adversaries to one where you're fundamentally partners and then you argue about specifics. That's the fundamental repositioning that's required. So it's not just about a pause in the relationship, it's really about a repositioning in the relationship. Dr. Ngozi, if we move it forward, there are three, four pillars that we need to put in place to foster growth. And I don't know whether this year there will be a lot of distractions that keep us further away from that goal, but what would you focus on to bring back longer sustainable growth? Well, thank you. And I just want to say that I strongly support what Christian and Christine said. I think the best way to be prepared for any eventuality is to focus on those things you need to do anyway. For me at the WTO, I don't fret about who is going to come or what is happening. Maybe that's an overstatement. But in a way, it's focusing on what do we need to do to strengthen and reform the organization so that whatever the circumstance, it will be able to deliver what is supposed to deliver for people. So if we keep doing that, I think that's a strong answer, a bit of offense in that regard. But with respect to what are the pillars we should look at for restoring growth, I think that's a very good conversation because we focus a lot on the pessimistic things that might happen. But there are some bright shoots that I want to talk about on the trade side. First, I want to mention that in spite of all the uncertainties that we talk about, and I pointed to in the beginning, trade has been largely resilient. It is because of trade that Europe was able to find other sources of energy from the US and the Gulf and elsewhere to make up for the withdrawal of energy from Russia. It's because of trade that 35 countries dependent on the Black Sea region from Africa were able to find alternative sources of grain fertilizer. So trade has been a force for resilience, and there are some bright spots in trade that we need to be conscious of. There's digital trade and services trade has, is growing fast, especially digitally delivered services trade growing at 8% per annum. And that is a very, very interesting thing because now we're all talking of digital platforms, AI, and this is a positive sign. And we should be preparing ourselves to say, how do we support such trade? How do we make sure that it benefits small and medium enterprises, women, those at the margin? Green trade has tripled from 2000 to now, tripled in value to $1.9 trillion. That's another opportunity. And finally, I want to say that the reshaping of supply chains, I see that as an opportunity and not a challenge. And when you see it as an opportunity, it could help us look at other sources of growth. If you take just one supply chain that we talked about here, the critical minerals and critical raw material supply chain, we have the possibility that these critical raw materials are found in many developing countries who did not benefit as much from the first phase of integration into the global economy. There is now a chance to bring them in through developing these supply chains in place because they have two advantages, not only the raw materials, but also green energy. So combining those two, and I'm glad to say that Chancellor Schultz and Europe has caught on to this, you can go to Africa or Latin America and develop these supply chains, bring in new sources of growth, create new employment, lift people up from poverty in these countries. So those are some good opportunities that are out there, some hope. David? On trade, whoever is elected president is not likely to enter into a lot of trade agreements. The word trade in the United States or trade agreements is almost a curse word now. Somebody is in the audience here, Mike Froman, who negotiated the TPP agreement under President Obama. That couldn't even get a vote in the United States Congress. And I don't think any major trade agreement could be approved by our current Congress, and I don't think it's going to change for a while, no matter who the president is, unfortunately, because trade is often seen by certain constituencies in the United States as favoring jobs offshore and not really is very popular at all. Even Hillary Clinton, when she was running for president, was against the TPP, even though it had been negotiated by Democratic administration in which she had served. On U.S.-China, U.S.-China is the most important bilateral relationship in the world. There's no doubt about it, but there is no political benefit in the United States about saying anything beneficial or good about China during a presidential election year. So, President Biden and President Trump, I don't think or either one are going to say we need to have closer ties with China, and I'm going to be nicer to China than I was before. It's just not going to happen during a presidential election year. Hopefully, after the election's over, the progress that's been made recently at the APEC meeting can see something blossom, but I don't think you'll see anything blossom before then, though hopefully the Chinese will provide some pandas against the United States, which we desperately would like to have. Minister Al-Jaddan, what are some of the policies that you think we need to put in place now to make sure that there's success in four or five years that we're maybe not thinking about as much as we should? First of all, I would like just to follow up on this. I was talking to a U.S. friend yesterday about almost the same subject, and I asked him whether he is optimistic, and he said, well, at least it is only four years, and someone else will come, so it would be interesting to see what is going to happen in the next four years. But more seriously, I think what needs to be done is looking at how can you actually mobilize your own resources? How can you do structural reform? I can't tell you from experience, and I'm not here really to promote what Saudi is doing, but from experience, what we have done in the last seven years actually helped us significantly in our resilience to deal with the multiple shocks that we are facing, including what the current situation, geopolitical tension, so structural reforms are critically important. Local revenue mobilization is actually very important for countries, and obviously, the support of multilateral development institutions to catalyse private sector investments in developing nations and particularly low-income countries is very critical. Catalyzing that is, I think, will be, and I'm actually very optimistic with the reform that the World Bank is doing, and actually bringing MEGA, IFC, and their own IBRD and IDA together to make sure that they provide that support and catalyse more private investments in low-income countries. I think this is promising, and I would love to see some results actually this year. Mr. President, you worry about something that we're not really talking about, and this is fiscal spending. Are we sowing now the seeds to have an even bigger crisis four, five, six years from now? Well, I think the most important and most neglected area of public policy is fiscal reform. Christian spoke about the already very high debt levels, so we're starting in the wrong place, and we're going to have to address challenges in the future that are going to have to require more fiscal investments. We're neglecting the issues because it's never pleasant to talk about raising revenues or raising taxes. It's never pleasant to talk about redirecting subsidies or redirecting spending, so we're just merrily gliding into the future, tinkering at the edges, and even the most major international tax reform of recent years through the G20 was really about something very small to do with corporate taxes and rearranging and reallocating corporate taxes. It's a very small issue compared to the challenges we really face. The big issues are, how do we address the climate transition? How do we address the needs of aging societies and broken social security systems? And how do we address a challenge of a AI era and ensuring that populations can cope with it and benefit from it? It's all going to require the public sector, so if I just take the first, there is no realistic solution to the climate transition that does not involve a globally coordinated system of carbon taxes. There's no realistic or fair solution that does not involve the globally coordinated system of carbon taxes, and Ngozi at the WTO is coordinating this with several other international organizations. It's still early days. There's a perception that it's unjust, it's unfair, it'll lead to inflation. In fact, quite the contrary. If we don't do this, the countries that will suffer most ultimately are the developing countries. They're going to be the worst affected by climate change. If we don't do this, it's ordinary, vulnerable communities that will suffer the most. What we need is a system of carbon taxes coupled with subsidies for vulnerable households and a stream of funding for the developing world to allow them to engage in investments in mitigation and adaptation that allows them to keep growing, and that's a real opportunity. It's a fair solution and it's the only realistic solution and we can't keep ducking it. Second, there's a huge opportunity of redirecting subsidies. The IMF has estimated that about $1.3 trillion is spent each year in fuel subsidies. That's about five times more the amount of subsidies that goes into green technologies and green energy. We've got to redirect it, redirect those fuel subsidies to helping vulnerable households, to helping firms to adjust, and to spurring renewables and other green technologies. That's a major redirection. It's fair, it's sustainable, and it's realistic. It has to be achieved. The third issue that's maybe the most neglected is preparing for an ageing society with confidence, and it means re-jigging in significant ways of social security systems and healthcare financing systems. It's not sustainable. Too many people who don't need support are getting support, and too many people who need support the most in healthcare systems are not getting enough support. So there has to be reshaping of that curve of subsidies within healthcare to benefit those who need it the most. There has to be more spending on preventive or pre-emptive healthcare spending to help people stay healthy for as long as they can rather than wait for the very expensive occasions when they have to end up in hospital, particularly for acute care. So fundamental reform to healthcare and fundamental reform to labour markets to allow people to stay engaged at work if they wish for as long as possible. Those are very important shifts in social policy. So we have to get real. The challenges we face are different from the past. We're not going to address them by just tinking around the edges with rearranging corporate taxes and the like. It requires raising taxes to take on the climate transition. It requires redirecting subsidies to be fair and to ensure that as we age, no one is vulnerable, and we can actually sustain high-quality healthcare systems and social security systems. It requires change, and we discuss this very rarely. We have here five current and former finance ministers who have gone through years of discussion at the G20, at the IMF. We spend a lot of time talking about monetary policy. We spend very little time talking about fiscal policy reforms for a more secure future. On that, can I just say on that point, on fiscal reform in the United States, very difficult to do, we now have $34 trillion of debt, $34 trillion of debt. The interest on it is approaching our defense budget. And if we don't resolve this in the near future, something is going to happen to the dollar. The dollar has been the only reserve currency for quite some time. But if the United States can't get its fiscal act together, at some point, people are going to do what they did to the British pound and the Dutch gilder years ago when too much money was borrowed by those countries and that their currency didn't become as valuable and therefore lost its reserve status. The U.S. doesn't have any real challenger right now to reserve currency status for the dollar, but it will if it keeps doing what it's doing. We have 122 percent of our GDP and debt. And we are, each year, our budget deficit is probably about 25 percent of our spending. And we just can't keep doing that. But there is nobody in the United States government that I see is really seriously addressing that problem. But it will be a big problem in the not too distant future. Thank you, Dr. Ngozi. Well, maybe you're pointing to me because I was nodding so much when Thamon was talking. And that's why he's a favorite. I mean, we have to look at what we need to do on the fiscal side to finance the green transition. The money is incoming. The amounts are huge and the trillions needed. You take Africa, for instance, it needs $190 billion per year, up to 2030 to finance the green transition. What is it getting now? Minute amounts. How is it going to be raised? So we have to think of sensible things like how do we raise that money? So that's one. The second is business. They are facing a lot of regulatory fragmentation. There are 73 different carbon taxing and pricing regimes in the world today. They are confused. When they go from one country to the other, they have to think about a different way and a different system. So how do we bring this together? So if we have a common methodology or framework for a global carbon pricing regime, I think that will help. And then we can use some of those resources that would be raised to help finance the green transition in those vulnerable countries that don't have the resources. So that was why I was nodding so vigorously. And I think developing countries need to get behind it. With now, the international financial institutions have all been working on this in parallel, the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, the OECD. And finally, we are coming together in one task force to try to see if we can put all our energies together and develop a common methodology or framework. We know that not every country is going to have a carbon price or tax. The U.S. will never do it. They will approach it through regulation and subsidies and other means. But once we have a common framework, we can all measure what we are doing against that. And more importantly, we can transfer some of the resources raised to help finance the green transition. So thank you for raising that. Dr. Ngozi, I know you have to leave in a couple of minutes because you have an important meeting. So a very quick question to you. Why has it been so slow? Is it because we're distracted with other crises? And are you confident that actually all of this is going in the right direction? Well, it's so slow because, I mean, when you talk of raising taxes of price, it's never a popular subject anywhere. As Thamman said, you have so many former present finance ministers on the panel, we know what this means. It's politically difficult to talk about raising taxes. It's also politically difficult to phase out subsidies. We tried it when I was a finance minister in Nigeria and we wanted to phase out our subsidies. We went halfway, but it was very politically sensitive. So that is why you don't hear great enthusiasm when you talk about raising taxes or phasing out subsidies. But I think the world, we need to take some hard decisions. You cannot have a situation in which you have $1.2 trillion in fossil fuel subsidies. A lot of it is in developed countries, by the way, not developing. And then we are trying to look for peanuts for a loss and damage fund. You have over $600 billion in trade distorting agricultural subsidies. And we are looking for peanuts for a loss and damage fund. When we get $200 million, we're all happy. We need to take those hard decisions, but they are not being done because it's politically difficult. And politicians will look at the short-term horizon. They want to be re-elected, right? That's the problem. Thank you so much, Dr. Ngozi. I know you have to go. Minister Algidon? I think a few points. I listened to Mr. President and we spoke briefly before we came on stage. I would like, first of all, I think let us agree that climate change is real, risks from climate change are real, and we should work all together to find solutions that would help the planet and the livelihood of people. I think we are all in agreement. I remember in 2014, when the Paris Agreement was reached, developed nations have committed $100 billion annually for developed countries to deal with climate change and for them to transition out of carbon-intensive energy. What have we seen so far? Almost zero, almost zero. And I can understand Mr. President's enthusiasm about carbon tax and how it may change the equation, but then he linked it to two things. Subsidies to those who are in need. I agree. Whenever you raise cost on your community or others, you need to look out for the less fortunate and provide social safety net. Agreed. The second caveat, Mr. President said, is we need to find a way that we channel part of that to low-income countries. We tried that and it failed now. So trying something else, similar to what you have tried before and expect different results, it's very difficult. There are a lot of political resistance from developed nations, politically internally. I mean, we have heard just now some of the comments. So to say that we will put the tax, but then we will direct some of it to low-income countries is going to be very difficult politically, extremely difficult. Third, I would just remind ourselves that while we are enjoying the hated conference place here, there are over 600 million people in Africa that have no basic electricity, not intermittent, basic, absolutely no electricity. So to say to them, go and eat cake, why are you, you know, looking for a bread is hypocrisy, in my opinion. They have their own endowment who should help them get that endowment from under their feet. Gas, for example, let them fuel their own transition, allow them to use their own endowment, help them to use their youth, empower their youth, risk their youth, train their youth. That is really what is going to change African and other low-income countries. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Minister Lindner. I hope nobody tells my coalition partners and colleagues in cabinet that we are here considering raising taxes, would cause serious problems for me domestically. Seriously, I would like to widen the perspective a bit. I completely share the idea of fighting global warming by ambitious action, but we should think about the right methodology. I think there is an alternative to carbon tax and the alternative is a carbon market. In Germany, it is extremely costly to avoid further emissions. And I wonder if the same amount of money we have to spend in Germany would have an even better effect on other places on the world, for example, to invest in electricity production in Africa with renewable energy as part of a compensation of the German steel industry and for their emissions could have globally a better effect with lower investment. And it doesn't matter where carbon dioxide is emitted, it is a global challenge. So probably we should ask OECD to work on a common framework for a global carbon market as they did successfully on the global minimum taxation. If I'm allowed to, I would like to add a second remark. To finance all our needs for transition, fighting poverty and to prepare for the aging society, I think there is one solution. Given the demographics, given the investment needs, I think we have to foster our productivity. And this is why I'm advocating for structural reforms in the labor markets, in technology, cutting red tape, being more competitive when it comes to corporate taxation. And well, obviously I'm talking about the reform agenda of Germany, but I think others have to face similar challenges. We in Germany, we have to do our homework and probably we are part of the model because others have similar challenges. We had to solve our debt and deficit issues, which has made me becoming the loneliest minister in the cabinet, but we succeeded to solve our debt issues. And now we have to strengthen the supply side. And I know what some of you are thinking. Germany, probably the sick man. Germany is not the sick man. Germany is after a very successful period since 2012. And these years of crisis, Germany is a tired man after a short night. And the low growth expectations are partly a wake-up call. And now we have a good cup of coffee, which means structural reforms. And then we will be continuing to succeed economically. Thank you so much, minister. We only have five minutes left. So I'm going to call on Madame Lagarde and then David's president and minister. So thank you very much. I would like to flag a couple of areas where I think there can be hope and they can be trust if we deliver. And I'd like to start with two observations as a follow-up to Thamen. Your point is well taken about taxation, Thamen. But you have in this panel, in the discussion we're having, a good example of how difficult it is. Because tax issues present a huge heterogeneity. Whether you're sitting in one country or the other, you can have a tax burden of 50% of GDP or 10% of GDP. And you're starting from a completely different picture. So that should be taken into account. Second, there are currently instruments that have been laboriously negotiated at the OECD level to put in place those two pillars. One that institutes a minimum corporate taxation. And the other one that proposes to allocate profits of large corporates around the world on the basis of where the activity is generated. These agreements have been approved at the OECD level. They just need to be ratified. So it's there. Let's get on with it and move. Because otherwise, we will move to more fragmentation of tax. And we are seeing it with the carbon tax border adjustment here and there. And that would be more cacophony added to the risk that we see. And that takes me to my second area where I think there is hope if we, I'm sorry that Ngozi had to go because it touches on trade. Everybody will agree, no matter how much we talk about de-globalisation, that globalisation had massive positive impact in pulling people out of poverty, hundreds of millions. If we listen to I.J. Bunga from the World Bank, this virtuous path on which we were heading is now best stable at worst declining, more poverty than less poverty. Well, if we look at trade and the decoupling or the de-risking, however we want to call it, it implies two things. One, there will be different and new sources of supply and new patterns of trade. Number one, number two, because there is more vulnerability associated with supply, it may well be that the cost will be higher in the long term. And maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe we've been relying on this principle of efficiency over security a little bit too much, assuming that everything had virtually no cost, assuming that labour cost had to be minimal and reduced over the course of time. Well, this can change and maybe can change for the better to bring those people who had the benefit of globalisation and were taken out of poverty, also out of this recessing poverty that is at risk of bringing some of them back down again. So I see a lot of positives on those two fronts. I had a few other items, but I'll save them for next year. David and then this president. To paraphrase President of my country, ask not what the World Economic Forum can do for you, but what you can do for the World Economic Forum. Now, what do I mean by that? The purpose of the forum, and I can't speak for it because Klaus is the person who is really the most responsible to be able to speak for it, but I can say that the purpose for this purpose is to inspire people. What we've tried to do in this panel and in other panels around the World Economic Forum is inspire people and educate people. Hopefully, when you go back to your country, you'll educate yourself about some of the things that we talked about here that you might be inspired to learn more about and try to pick one issue of the ones we talked about where you make yourself not only well educated about it, better educated than now, but try to make some difference in your own country to try to bring some forward some of these ideas because the only way we're really going to be effective the World Economic Forum is we have people that come to the sessions and those people are watching on streaming, they are going to take these ideas and do something useful with them by working in their own countries to kind of educate people about these things. And that's what I really hope all of you will do is take something away from this session and say I'm now inspired to learn more about this issue or that issue and I'm going to try to do something in my country to make it more likely that that will happen. Thank you. Thank you. In 30 seconds or one minute, Mr. President, what are you positive about? I agree entirely that we need carbon markets that itself is a complex endeavor but we need to develop it and we need to make it global. It's not a substitute for carbon taxes for a very simple reason. Governments are going to have to invest significantly more than they've invested before. We want the private sector to fund most of the transition but about a third of the investment is going to have to come from government because of externalities and other reasons. It has to be funded. It has to be funded and we can't, there's no magical thinking here. Funding requires taxes of one form or another. The alternative is more and more boring, which Christian will be the first to agree, is not sustainable. So let's not duck the issue. Our real challenge is political. It is unpopular to raise any taxes. You have to design taxes together with subsidies so as to make it acceptable and fair. And that's the task of finance ministers and we've got to coordinate this as much as possible globally so there are no leakages. Design taxes and subsidies so that we can get ahead on this, invest at a higher level and make it fair for ordinary people. The developing world, I quite agree with both Al-Jaddan and Christine. It is an opportunity. We have the opportunity in fact of growing green energy powered industry in parts of the world which have lots of sun and wind. We have the opportunity of shaping growth strategies that are sustainable but it's going to require investment. It's going to require support from the advanced world, going to require a much enhanced role for the international financial institutions. We can achieve it. So all I'm saying at the end of the day is our political antenna have gotten too short. We're all looking at the next elections in a whole range of countries and the consequence if we carry on that way is going to be much more pain in future and a much higher hurdle that future politicians will need to cross. So let's start moving now, face things in realistically, make sure that it's fair and just and avoid piling up a large problem for the future. Thank you so much Mr. President. You got the optimistic guide to 2024 and the pessimistic guide to 2024 and beyond. Thank you so much to all of our panelists and I would love if the audience could also stay in their seats, also the panelists, because it's my great pleasure to welcome on the stage the President of the World Economic Forum, Borger Brende, for the closing remarks of this 54th World Economic Forum. Thank you very much to this excellent panel. I think you rebind a bit of optimism but also a lot of realism. I remember when as a young student in economics it was said that if you bring five economists in the same room it would be eight different opinions. I think we could get some real consensus takeaway from this panel, especially when it comes to rebuilding trust and that is also the theme of this annual meeting. So on behalf of our Chairman, Professor Klaus Schwab, managing board, including myself, I would really like to use this opportunity to thank you for your active participation in the World Economic Forum's 54th annual meeting in Davos. This year's meeting came at a critical and complex moment, not only for the world but for each person in it, something that was also alluded by the panel, also underlining the importance of inclusion. Rising global temperatures, a still fragile economy, and the deteriorating security landscape are challenges that are not bound by borders. They affect us all. There's no longer such a thing as a country, company, or community insulated from global shocks, and when it comes to leveraging opportunities it is not possible to do so alone. Yet we know the foundation of cooperation, trust, has been eroding in recent years, which is why this week's meeting on rebuilding trust has been so important. Leaders from around the world, from the public and private sector,