 So, it's 11 o'clock, so we should start for our hour on the global economy. The highlight, of course, in my view of Davos every year, and at an extraordinarily interesting time. We have a very distinguished panel here, and I think very much the right people, though as you will notice, very much a focus on the advanced economies, but not entirely since the IMF speaks for the world. So to my left is Christine Lagarde, who of course is the managing director of the IMF. To her left is Haruiko Koroda, who is the governor of the Bank of Japan. To his left is Philip Hammond, who is the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the UK. To his left is Larry Fink, head of BlackRock, of course, founder, and our one representative, but quite a powerful one of the private sector. And finally, to his left is Wolfgang Scheubler, the finance minister of Germany, and certainly not somebody about whom I need to introduce to this audience, given his prominent role for so very long. We are, I think, every year is different, and this year is particularly fascinating. We seem to be an era of which the IMF is actually, and I'm sure Christine Lagarde will talk about this very soon, really moderately optimistic. The world economy is improving, expected to continue to improve. Pretty well every area of the world economy is growing. Markets are optimistic, but the dominant concerns are clearly and fascinatingly and significantly political. I think it's very appropriate that we are holding this panel at the day at which the new president is inaugurated. We are in a world in which we expect not inconsiderable policy divergence in monetary policy between the US and other developed countries, which has implications, important implications for currencies and for financial markets. And there is obviously very real concern about the possibility of trade policy friction, protectionism, and that was obviously an issue very much raised by President Xi Jinping's remarkable intervention earlier this week. And then there's, of course, the little local matter in Europe of the decision of my country, whether rightly or wrongly, in my view on that is fairly well known, to decide to leave the European Union. So political matters are of immense significance and raise, obviously, very substantial tail risks. But in any way, let me start with you, Christine Lagarde. How do you see the world economy from the IMS point of view and what are the things that really concern you? I think Martin, your description of the situation is fairly accurate, and I would agree with most of what you said. In terms of numbers, we are seeing, for the first time, numbers that are not being revised down by the IMF. So that's a good sign. The second good sign is that we're seeing progress from a 3.1% growth in 2016 to a forecast of 3.4% in 2017 and 3.6% of 2018. Of course, as I was reminded yesterday, this is all based on models. But this certainly is looking better than what we have seen in previous years. Why is this? Because we are seeing advanced economies doing a bit better than we had anticipated, Japan being one, certainly, the euro area doing a bit better as well and certainly being in a recovery cycle. But we're seeing and we have actually revised up our US forecast because of the high probability of a stimulus package that will most likely take the form of tax reform, more likely to happen in 2017, that the actual implementation or launching of infrastructure projects which are not either defined nor actually financed and will have major hurdles as most infrastructure projects do meet when they are launched. So we have revised up the US. The question we have, and which is not entirely clear, is how this fiscal stimulus is going or not to be combined with trade measures that would most likely have a negative impact and the combination of the fiscal and trade measures, if they were to be taken, would be something to be explored and probably something that would be overall not a net positive. For the moment, what we are also forecasting and this was anticipated by the markets question, are they right or not? Maybe Larry can address that one. But what was anticipated by the markets is higher interest rates as a result of higher inflation and a US economy working at full regime and therefore higher valuation of the dollar relative to other currencies which has clearly an impact on those corporates and those sovereigns that have borrowed in US denominated loans and which will suffer as a result of that. So that's the landscape as we see it with an upside in the short term, spillover and potentially negative spillover consequences for other countries and a big question mark as to what the policy shift will be going forward. We have slightly revised down the emerging and developing markets for idiosyncratic reasons in the main. India being one because of the bank notes withdrawal mechanism that will probably have an impact and a negative one in 2017. Mexico clearly as anticipated by the markets with direct potential spillover effects from the US policies. And I could go on and on, but I see that you're getting impatience, Halstom. I promise you will have the opportunity to elaborate further. Thank you very much for being so disciplined. As always, a wonderful model for everybody else. I'm going to turn now to Europe and to Mr. Schäubler, if I may. I'd be very interested in your perspective on the German and Eurozone economies. This is, I think, not quite the first, but there's a growing sense of confidence in the Eurozone. It's growing. Most economies are growing. So the first question I would have for you is, do you feel confident about the solidity of the Eurozone economy or do you actually feel it's all a sugar high from monetary policy? And secondly, maybe you'd like to comment on how far, just very briefly, if we're going to further, you think the Brexit decision might affect the Eurozone and European economies before we discuss the details of that process. I am a little bit uncertain what will happen in this year, 2017, in the Eurozone. It's right. Actually, the Eurozone is doing economically, fiscally a little bit better. It's fine. Germany's doing well. We had a growth rate last year by 1.9%. That's not so bad for Germany. But we have election in some important European member states, beginning in Netherlands in March and some others are following. Therefore, there is a lot of uncertainty. We don't really know what will be the geopolitical risk if we will have problems in trade, in free trade. The German economy will feel some influence on this. It's quite clear. Nevertheless, our growth has been driven by internal demand. Our consumer demand is very high. Our labour participation is the highest we ever used in history. Therefore, the consumer demand is the highest we ever used. Therefore, we have some resilience, whatever will happen. We have a lot of uncertainties. And therefore, it's fine that the IMF had not to review the downside of his forecast for last year. I will hope that it will stay for the forecast for 2017 as well. But we will see what happens. I'm not quite sure. Because the geopolitical risks have increased and they have not been reduced. And in that context. I think the Brexit will not have in this year. In the future, of course. In this year, I don't think that there will be a lot of negative influence on the eurozone. I don't think that actually you can see that Phil Hamann is much better. It has a positive impact on the British economy. Therefore, everything is fine until now. Well, that obviously will come back to these issues. But that's a lead-in for you, Philip Hamann. So the British economy is fine. Brexit did no damage at all. The currency has adjusted smoothly. It's adjusting smoothly every day, making me feel poorer and poorer. But that's neither here nor there. That's part of the process. And we now have a plan. And it's all going to work. Except for Tuesday, when it made you feel richer. Yes. And then a small blip in the downward trend. So explain why everything is fully under control. First of all, let me defend floating exchange rates and independent currencies. This is a smooth and efficient transmission mechanism that deals very effectively with an external shock. And that's what we've seen. The UK economy has been resilient in 2016, confounding many skeptics who believe that we would face an immediate and negative response in the economy to the Brexit referendum. In fact, we end 2016 as the fastest growing of the large developed economies. Much of that has depended on consumer demand. Consumer demand remaining very strong. And as I've said, the currency depreciation is now feeding through into inflation, which will increasingly affect consumer behaviour during this year. Hence the lower forecast for economic growth in 2017 as that inflation effect takes place. I think it's important that we understand what were the drivers of the Brexit decision. It is simply not correct to assess the UK referendum as being one and the same as the movement that led to the election of President Trump in the US. There was no anti-trade rhetoric, no anti-globalisation rhetoric in the UK referendum campaign. Indeed, one of the central tenets of the leave campaign was that we should do more trade with the rest of the world. Britain would be free to negotiate trade agreements beyond Europe. So it was absolutely the opposite of the anti-trade rhetoric that we heard in the United States. But what there was clearly was a strong strand of feeling against uncontrolled migration. And I lay the responsibility for that, squarely at the door of Prime Minister Blair who failed to impose transitional regime in the UK in 2004 so that while other countries in Europe smoothly transitioned the A8 members and the freedom of movement from A8 members, Britain took the full force of the tide in 2004 and that created a public perception which we still haven't shaken off to this day. Business investment, of course, is a bit of a binary story. Some businesses quite understandably are holding off investment decisions, waiting for the fog of Brexit to clear and to have a much better understanding of what the future looks like. But other businesses that are not so dependent on access to European market on trade barriers have continued to invest. We've seen big investments in the UK by Google, by Apple, by Softbank since the referendum decision. We've also seen big investment decisions, for example, by Japanese car manufacturers to proceed with investments in the UK. And as I travel around, I find that in many parts of the world the UK is now seen as a buying opportunity because of the depreciation of the currency and the fact that fundamentally we are still a large market with 65 million affluent consumers. So investment that is focused on the demands of the UK economy I think is still proceeding. What we've tried to do this week is to give clarity to our expectations about the future. We've deliberately, since the referendum, tried to keep open all the options while we conclude our internal debates about the best way forward. But what we've now done is said very clearly we recognise that because our political imperative says that we cannot accept freedom of movement we must respect the political imperative of our European partners that says without freedom of movement you cannot be a member of the single European market. So we have pitched our proposal not at membership of the market but at a comprehensive free trade agreement between an independent United Kingdom outside the European Union and the European Union. And I would hope because it's very much in the interest both of the UK and the European Union that we continue to have free trade between the UK and the European Union so that the complex supply chains that have built up over 40 years can continue to operate. The complex business relationships can continue to operate. I hope that European consumers and businesses will continue to have access to the highly efficient capital and financial services markets in London and that British consumers will continue to be able to buy in the eye-watering quantities that they currently do the goods produced by European Union producers where the UK has a £100 billion a year trade in goods deficit with the other 27 European Union partners. We don't want to see those trade patterns disrupted. We want to see them able to continue. And I just want to make two final points, Martin. First of all, that we've been very clear that in this world of a comprehensive trade agreement between the UK and the European Union the European Union is likely to remain the UK's single largest trade partner and it is in our vital national interest that our single largest trade partner is confident, successful, stable and growing. And therefore we have a strong interest in seeing that the European Union is a success going forward and is confident about that success. And we also have a strong interest in ensuring that the euro as a currency is both stable and successful. The final point I would make is that the UK will maintain its competitiveness. It has to maintain its competitiveness. My strong preference and my Prime Minister's strong preference is that we maintain our competitiveness by maintaining but by remaining within the European economic mainstream with access to the European markets and on a reciprocal basis access for our European neighbours to our market continuing to operate to European norms and European regulatory standards. That is our strong preference. But if we are driven out of that market, if we are denied access to our most important market then we will for sure reinvent ourselves and create another way of being competitive. Just as right now with a lower productivity, lower labour productivity than our European neighbours we maintain our competitiveness by working longer hours to ensure that overall unit labour costs in the UK remain competitive. So we will ensure that we maintain our competitiveness because that is our duty to the electors that have put us in government to maintain their standard of living in whatever way we have to. But I hope that that will be through a comprehensive free trade agreement with the European Union. That is an interesting perspective which you have already mentioned earlier I think this week has raised lots of issues which might have time to come back to. Let me turn now to Japan, Governor Koroda. How is Abinomix going? And how are your... I mean you really have been at the forefront of thrilling new moves in central banking of the type that I think might fairly say the finance minister of Germany doesn't entirely approve. And the... How's that working? Thank you, Martin. Our top priority for macroeconomic policy continue to be to overcome deflation. Since Bank of Japan introduced so-called quantitative and qualitative monetary easing or QQE nearly four years ago, Japan's economy has improved significantly. First, corporate profits have reached near record levels. Second, the unemployment rate has declined to 3%, which is virtually full employment. And third, the core CPI inflation rate turned positive in autumn 2013 and has remained positive for three years. However, the 2% price stability target has yet to be achieved. There are two major issues that we need to address in Japan. First, after a decade of deflation, inflation expectations among the public are still sort of adaptive. That is, they are heavily influenced by past inflation. In fact, inflation expectations after showing signs of picking up were weighed down again by the decline in observed inflation resulting from the significant drop in oil prices from 2014 to early 2016. Second, even with record high profits and the tight labor market, firms have remained cautious about wage increases and which is one reason why inflation has not been gathering momentum. Against this background, the Bank of Japan introduced so-called QQE with yield curve control in September 2016. The new policy framework consists of two components. First is the inflation overshooting commitment with which the bank committed itself to continuing to expand the monetary base until actual inflation, not the outlook, exceed 2% and stays above that level in a stable manner. The second component, yield curve control, is designed to facilitate the implementation of the yield curve that is most appropriate for achieving the price stability target of 2%. Next, I just would like to make a few comments on the global economy. One notable change since the second half of last year is the global pickup in manufacturing and trade which had been sluggish for quite a while since the global financial crisis. The economies have been regaining momentum with the increase in demand for IT-related goods. Japan's economy has shown clear signs of recovery in exports and industrial production as well. The global economy seems to be going through a turning point. It is not a coincidence that global economic growth, commodity prices, expectations and long-term interest rates all bottomed out in the first half of last year. In addition to this improvement in the global economy with low interest rate under the Bank of Japan's yield curve control as well as the planned large-scale fiscal stimulus by the government, by the way also various structural reforms including labor market reform has been implementing. Japan's economy I think will grow around 1.5% well above its potential in the current fiscal year and the next fiscal year. As Japan's firms become more proactive taking advantage of the favorable economic and financial environment Japan's economy is likely to head toward a sustainable growth path under the 2% price stability target. Thank you very much. So now let me turn to you Larry Fink. From the private sector perspective you might have a big response but obviously what we'd be most interested in what is the transformation of American policy likely to mean for America and for the world from your assessment what should we expect and what should we be concerned about how seriously should we be taking some of the rhetoric we've heard particularly on trade policy but there are other issues I mean this is I think what is your assessment how should we read this? Well thank you Martin let me I want to just come back to all the points that were made I think what we are seeing growth in all the points of the world and I think the growth of the UK and in the US where we're starting to see really a rise in optimism especially for the small businesses in America and I do believe the Brexit vote and the Donald Trump vote had immediate impact on so many families and individuals in our two respective countries that they had a voice their voice has changed policy and whether they're right or wrong they believe the past policies were wrong for them and we'll find out if they're right on that but more importantly they are encouraged they're spending more money their optimism in spending more money in the future is very true in the US you've seen that quite evident in car sales right after the election and you're seeing that in optimism in small business to invest so we're at a point in time now the optimism is pretty high and from different components of our respective societies and I think this is something quite important but the other thing I would also say getting into the Trump policies I think one of the most important components of his policies or proposed policies is less impact by monetary policy more impact by proposed fiscal policy whether it's in the form of tax relief or corporations or maybe individuals and then two the potential of finally addressing the issue around infrastructure which in the United States we have two trillion dollars of deferred maintenance and the combination of those two policies has now and if you see it in the stock prices of many of the commodity-oriented companies from steel and cement these company stocks are up they may have doubled in some cases since the election so the marketplaces is looking at some of these policies believing these policies and I'm not here to suggest the market is correct at the moment but I think it's important to note that's where we are today obviously we'll find out if the market is correct by the ability to enact these policies and importantly how to pay for these policies I know as much as you do about how this will all be implemented in our conversations with the proposed economic teams they want to be loud, noisy and strong in the first hundred days I think that will continue to create some optimism on the other hand we still have quite a bit of uncertainty about how we are going to pay for this you suggested some of the rhetoric related to a trade adjustment tax I hope that is not the policy I think that policy attacks the voters who voted for him if you think about the percentage of products that are imported at the low-end retailers it's dominated by 80 to 90 percent imports and it served a big purpose I mean one of the foundations of America has been consumerism since World War II and if any type of policy like that is changing our direction and it's going to have some very big implications and I'm not prepared to understand where they'll take it but it's a huge change for our economy and it would be a huge change for every economy sitting here so we need to find a way how we're going to pay for that maybe it's a VAT tax which is still a highly regressive tax for the families who are buying the everyday items I'm sure they would not put that within food and some of the real essentials so we'll see how this is all implemented I also need to say though one of the other issues that we're going to be facing all our economies here are going to be facing is one of the great reasons of the fear of the future is the aging of our societies with inadequacy retirement plans and we are not talking enough about the corrosive impact on low and negative interest rates for these six and seven years how it has really harmed that average worker especially in a world in which we moved away to define benefits, to define contribution we have forced the individuals in so many countries to have that responsibility for their future and quite frankly in most cases they've done a poor job and as a result I do believe the fear of the future is not just about the quality of the job whether they're listened to or not and I think they believe they've been listened to and I do believe it is that fear and growing fear especially in the world of longevity that they're going to have to be working longer and that's where we've seen the biggest increase of jobs in America since the financial crisis for men and women were 50 they're going to have to be working longer which has a huge impact on issues related to young and youth and youth employment and youth opportunities versus the elderly but I do believe the key component of advanced developed economies is addressing these long-term issues because they're not long-term anymore they're today's issues and growing and unfortunately monetary policy has no impact on it but a corrosive one let me thank you very very much very important issues have come to some of them one issue that Christine Lagarde raised which I'd like to raise with you was financial risks particularly in emerging and developing countries associated with a rising dollar quite a different fiscal monetary mix monetary policy normalization by higher interest rates reinforcing the stronger dollar quite possibly protectionism which she didn't mention which might do further reinforce that we might remember that from the early 80s now you're sitting right in the middle of these flows as it were how worried should we be? indeed some of the policies that are being proposed are policies that would further strengthen the US dollar the market's forward path on Fed behavior is two to three tightening this year which will obviously increase the valuation of the dollar considerably which will then impact competitiveness of the United States which will impact jobs in manufacturing that the president-elect is trying to create and so this is going to be a big essential component of the market volatilities and I think we're going to have to be prepared for this and I do believe there's going to be a great deal of tension between the president-elect and the Federal Reserve on these issues but we all should be aware that we are going to live in a world right now of a stronger dollar now depending on our behaviors towards our trading partners this can have a further impact on the dollar if we aggravate some of our large lenders and we are still the biggest borrower of treasury debt and if we are going to raise our deficits and not completely offset that by other tax revenues quite frankly that puts even more pressure on our dollar and in fact in those circumstances that's a very hard thing to navigate much harder for any central banker to stop that trend we see China trying to stop the outflows and we're sitting there having a hard time doing that and so we can have the opposite impact and I'm not suggesting we will but we should be aware this is one of the many outcomes that because of our fiscal policy and indeed if the fiscal policy works it's not going to work in the first year it's going to work in three and four so we're going to have oversized deficits in the first year and as I said depending on how our relationships with our lenders and we have huge overseas lenders right now the biggest lender is Japan the second biggest lender is China and we need to be paying quite a bit of attention on our relationships worldwide as the biggest borrower in the world so I want to take it that you think that preserving moderately harmonious relationships with one's principal creditors is a sensible policy tool well I've always believed you should be nice to your lenders I've lived that life unless of course you intended to fault none of these people said that I want to turn to you Mr. Shoibliff two questions, one very brief here the Americans are proposing what seems to be a pretty massive rebalancing between fiscal and monetary policy looser fiscal somewhat tied to monetary policy how do you view that sort of policy recommendation which also has been coming from the IMF in the Eurozone context that's a big issue which has been ongoing for a long time do you see any reason to change the approach you've taken on that the second and more important question when you hear Philip Hammond on Brexit do you feel encouraged by the apparent clarity of the British objectives and the desire for a harmonious open relationship and then how do you respond with this little twist in the tail that if we don't get what we want you might find we become Singapore on Thames this is slightly... how do you respond? I can't really imagine that UK this great nation would compare itself with Singapore therefore I am not to be shocked even with this now I think we will... Philip Hammond and myself we totally agree we have to manage this decision with this effect by the British people as a Brexit and we have to manage it in the best way to minimize or to avoid any damage for UK as well as for Europe and for Europe not only for Germany UK remains a very important partner we do whatever we can in detail it will be much more complicated than in the opening speeches that is quite clear but the negotiation will start and we will work hard but the German government will work in this negotiation always in the direction to minimize any risk and damage for both of us that is our clear position and look I would like to wait what will be the concrete decisions in the new administration in the United States as well we will see what will happen I can't really imagine that we will have huge damage for free trade the world leading superpower cannot cannot destroy free trade and I'm quite optimistic that even US and the western world as a whole will not leave the defence of free trade and the world only to Chinese leadership we will always pay some contribution to work for increasing things we have always in the G20 we have always worked for bringing down obstacles for free trade and there's a lot of things to do and therefore I have no interest for increasing but we will see what will happen therefore what we can do in Europe is to make our economy as strong as possible and that cannot be done I never comment monetary policy we know all the problems of the structure of the monetary union we often have discussed it has not changed the major problem in the monetary union is the gap of competitiveness in the different member states of the monetary union and that cannot be solved in weakening the stronger one that must be solved in the direction that the weaker economies on whatever reasons will be strengthened and they have to take some decisions for their own to make some what we call structural reforms whatever it means that must be done it's politically terrible to implement even in Germany by the way even in Germany my problem actually in Germany to be where Frank is and fiscal policy up by far too good and people believe and that is always a huge danger because you are tempted to become complacent and not to continue to work and that is what I again and again try to convince my friends and fellow partners that we have to work not to give the wrong incentives for the political decision makers in all European member states it's easy to say it's difficult to do and sometimes you get your role which you have already ironized in greeting me that is fine and welcoming me but that is what we have to do if we will not if then Europe must become more competitive Europe as a whole must become therefore I think this week could be like the Brexit the first reaction on the Brexit decision has been I cried and the second reaction was it's a waking up call for Europe it's a waking up call for Europe we have to do we have a growing Euro skepticism all over European member states and by the way I don't agree the anti-globalization emotions in public didn't play a role in the Brexit decision I think Euro skepticism and some reactions surprising reactions in electorate even in the UK and the US have a lot to do with disruptive changes in the social political economical structure in the globalized world of course in Europe the main issue has been in the last couple of years not only in UK with all the respect to migration issue, refugee issue you know my country has suffered huge discussions and discussions and Europe is under threat and we have to overcome the better we do the more is likely that Europe will remain a strong part of a growing global economy a very quick follow up because it's so central right now there is quite a bit of concern that two years after the Brexit negotiations begin that one might end up with essentially no agreements that it becomes a cliff edge which will be incredibly disruptive from your perspective clearly this is not something the British government wants from your perspective from the European Union side how concerned which should one be that that might happen we are very concerned that it will not happen and we will not only be concerned we will be engaged because it would be a disaster for all of us by the way I am personally totally convinced that even after all the negotiations have been done London will remain an important financial center for Europe and the finance center of London is serving European economy and therefore of course we have discussed when we discussed weeks ago that you can't speculate on interim solutions before you know what will be the final outcome now we know the final outcome now we can start to work and we will do whatever we can to avoid such progress I think it's possible to get it done I have one follow up question for Larry think which we haven't discussed one of the themes from the new congress which might be very significant here is very significant financial sector deregulation and so the question is do you think that might actually reverse in some profound way which would have global effects the sort of post 2009 regulatory structure which was not only an American one but became a global one under American leadership is this going to be a new financial world and if so in what way no that's very encouraging this is chaos if we undo everything we have done I don't think anyone is asking for that or wishing for that I do believe there is great things we could do to create greater efficiency there may be areas where we can ease that it was overbearing but the core what I would say of the BIS and the financial stability board initiatives and the FSOC initiatives Dodd-Frank are essential and I don't think anyone is calling for a total dismissal and I think everybody does realize this is not one thing that could be done unilaterally because it was done on a global stage and what we did learn from the financial prices is that we are all interconnected and I don't think that has gone away everyone understands that if anything we are probably even more interconnected and I would just say one other thing we have seen great advancements in other places in the world like China where non-bank entities are taking over more and more of the banking initiatives in those countries we have laws that make it difficult for non-banks who really want to get into that business I think the last thing a lot of banks would like to have that type of technological competition so regulation actually not just only makes the world a safer, more and a better interconnected across all regions it inhibits new participants and so regulation is not as bad as people think but one of the things that I hear from more and more CEOs if we could even keep the rules intact it just changed the tone because the tone at many times in many jurisdictions has been quite hostile the repeating of requests from all these different varied regulators has created huge costs the greatest increase in expenses by most banks is legal compliance some of it has been needed so it's been a great growth area an unfortunate growth area for many of these organizations so if we could, I do believe the tone needs to be changed but the fundamental regulation should remain because we're running out of time I'd like to take about three questions see how they go please ask a question make it one sentence you don't have two questions and you don't have the opportunity to make a speech I would be rather brutal about it this gentleman here please stand up, say who you are and ask the question thank you very much my name is Kumagai and I'm a chief economist at Daewa Institute of Research in Japan and last year we happened to meet two black swans in the UK and in the United States what will be the black swan or tail risk we might encounter this year what sort of fund black swan tail risk very good question they're not very black anymore are they gentlemen there please stand up, thank you my name is Tony Oko from Nigeria economic outlook for Africa and Latin it wasn't discussed at all very good and one final question this round somebody over there, please stand up thank you can you get a microphone to this gentleman I'm a global shaper from Delhi I work for Microsoft my question is in this world of artificial intelligence disruption do you feel that the policy is continuously lagging and what is it that policy makers can do to redefine global economy this is on how artificial intelligence new technologies are policy makers operating about 30 years behind the time I think that was more or less the sense I got of this question yes of course they are I think Christine Lagarde, I think most of these questions are probably for you, let's start what are the black swans by definition we don't know what the black swans are what are the greyish ones that we should be concerned about and of course one of the things which we haven't discussed is the outcome of some of these elections including the one in your own native country we haven't talked about Africa and Latin America really at all that's very important approximately 1.7 billion people or so I don't know the exact number maybe 1.6 let's could you answer on those two questions yeah on the black swans I will not speculate on what the outcome of the elections will be neither in the Netherlands nor in Germany nor in France but I would say that if the disruptions that we are expecting for 2017 as a result of what has happened in 2016 proved to be all negative and where to end up in a race to the bottom on the tax front on the trade front on the financial regulation front then that for me would be a really big black swan which would have devastating effects for other countries probably than those that are probably likely to cause it and that takes me to Sub-Saharan Africa in particular because one of the matters that everybody has to deal with at the moment is the migration of people so we talk about mobility we talk about professional mobility there is the geographical mobility that is to be expected from countries where the expectations the inequalities relative to others is significant so you asked me the outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa it's very diverse because Sub-Saharan Africa is not a country it's a continent full of diversity and different set of policies but we're moving from 1.8 in 2016 to sorry 1.6 to 2.8 to 3.7 so again we're seeing growth and some of that growth is obviously generated by additional trade additional movement that there is as a result of more trade taking place in advanced economies it's also locally generated for some countries and it's also generated by the commodity prices which are likely to go up although with some volatility but there are significant variations we've revised up a country like Nigeria for instance it's a factor of how much they will be able to control security particularly in the oil fields and refineries areas we've revised down other countries but in the main there is interconnections between those low-income countries and the emerging and advanced economies and as I said we see the spillover effects particularly in relation to the dollars on those countries that are for some of them largely indebted in U.S. denominated loans as significant I think those were the first two Yes Larry you wanted to say something I would say clearly the two election results were not black swans markets adapted very quickly and they were fine I would not define that as a black swan It was certainly grey swans I don't even know the sense that they were considered odds against clearly possible but black swans to me represent a real market disallocation we did not really see that it was fine we adapted very rapidly and quite efficiently in a very short order my biggest worry is linking the other two questions though I think the biggest black swan is the role of technology and how technology is changing the workforces everywhere in the world it's impacting the developed economies more developing economies and that's what the sense of this anger and fear that created those two election results but I do believe the model for emerging countries to follow what China did and having very cheap labor and good infrastructure was yesterday's business model for growth and I think what we're seeing now across the world and you're seeing China rapidly change it and this is what part of the 10-year plan of President Xi is is technology within China too that you're using more machines and less human input I think that's the future of Japan with its bad demographics and I worry for the countries in the developing world that have an economy that's based on cheap labor and not education those economies are going to fail miserably and that is my black swan that many countries that have little history in innovation little history in education will be even less prepared for tomorrow than they are today and that will be that will ultimately create more global divisions and issues but more importantly more income disparities that we've ever seen I think this incredibly deep question is the ladder of development which was export led growth on the base of cheap labor broken cut if so that is very profound we can't solve that unfortunately in the next five minutes but the question has been raised Hariki Koroda did you want to comment on these questions like black swan or grey swan and so on and so forth I would like to say that there may be a white swan because the latest wheel made by the IMF to me appears to be fairly cautious and so that there may be upside risk in the US economy this year and next year of course on the condition that as minister said there's no protectionism spreading all over the world thank you did you want to comment at all on this new technology and so forth and how positioned our economy for this I want to say two things first of all just on the Africa point it's nice to hear Christine talking about slightly higher growth projections for sub-Saharan Africa for Nigeria in particular but of course what she didn't say was that this is nowhere near enough growth to absorb the population growth so we're talking about higher GDP growth but lower GDP per capita and unless we solve that problem then the pressure from sub-Saharan Africa will continue on disruptive technology look we've been talking a lot here and at IMF meeting in Washington in October about the challenge of populist movements against trade and globalization the challenge of aging and the pressure that puts on politicians in trying to manage economies that's before we even talk about the pressure that's going to come from technological change so it won't I think even Larry would agree what's going to happen in 2017 but over the next decade or two we are going to see technology added to the challenge of demography and the pressures on trade and globalization and speaking from a UK perspective we recognize that this is a challenge that it particularly represents a challenge for people in our economy with low skills particularly older workers who don't feel able to embrace and learn new skills and new technologies but we also recognize that it's living in a fool's paradise to pretend that you can ignore this you have two choices you either embrace it and hope you can run with it or you ignore it and definitely get crushed by it so we have to embrace it we will use the proven track record of our economy to innovate and to use technology as a driver of growth we're fortunate in a number of areas of cutting edge disruptive technology by luck or good judgment or design or good politics I don't know which we happen to find that we have hubs of artificial intelligence development advanced biotechnology happening in the UK and we will exploit them and that means not only an environment that encourages them but also government and state regulatory bodies actively facilitating them so the regulatory sandbox that we've created in London for fintech companies is more important than any fiscal stimulus we can ever give them giving them a safe place to experiment in the real world with financial services technology is the biggest boost we can offer Can I just Thanks Martin I just want to add one thing to what Phil said about the per capita growth you're absolutely right and I would like to add that growth will not be sustainable if it is not inclusive and inclusiveness means looking after helping and supporting those countries that are in development process and that still need the 0.7% that the UK has continued so far to contribute to the development and that all countries should adhere to and do more to help because otherwise we will be dealing with massive inequality issues at all levels which will challenge growth oh my god this should be off time off that's never happened before but it tells me actually that the session is closed so how I would sum up our really fascinating discussion the economy is world wide is improving and might well do even better than the IMF forecast if so I think that will be the first time for about six years because I have a wonderful chart which shows that every year the IMF downgrades its forecast for the next five years so if they're about to start upgrading the forecast this is a new world it would indicate that the biases are really important at least and they are world wide it's clear from this gigantic challenges in the parts of the world not represented on this panel and that's really very important worth stressing the second point is last year was a pretty big year for politics and there's left some very big questions one of them is the local one Brexit and certainly the participants very distinguished participants here wanted to give us a very strong message that Britain sort of knows what it wants and Europe's most important power at least not the only voice by any means but the most important single voice I would have thought is pretty determined that an agreement will be reached that works and keeps a harmonious relationship between Britain and the rest of the European Union and that if it's true would be incredibly important and positive locally as it were in Europe and I must say this week is the first week since the referendum when I began to feel one has some sense of where this might go some agreement I think we were given to understand that maybe the revolution in Washington won't be as devastating as some fear and that the structure of the world trading system the world financial system will remain more or less intact and all I can say is please God and the and obviously that's incredibly important we've given pretty strong indication that there are countries represented here will do everything in their power to encourage America in the new American administration in that direction this still leaves us with the huge challenge of dealing with a lot of very unhappy people in the developed world and as Christine Lagarde and the IMF has been insisting for some time if we don't make development inclusive both globally and locally we risk more of these disruptions and the frightening thing about them is the policies that might be introduced as a result of these disruptions the position of the people who are so angry actually worse so we get into a vicious downward spiral that's obviously the thing that we must be most concerned about but I think these panelists want to give you the message that things are okay possibly improving and with some luck grown ups will remain in charge I hope they're right thank you very much