 To open the World Economic Forum on Latin America, we welcome the President of the Auditor of the Republic, Mr. Mali Samakri, joined by the Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, Professor Klaus Schwab, also joined by the Managing Director for Latin America, Marisol Arigeta. Thank you very much. I would first like to thank President Marisol Makri and his government, the government of Argentina, as well as the mayor of the city of Buenos Aires, Horacio Rodíguez Lareda, and his excellent work team for welcoming us to this very beautiful city. I would also like to especially recognize our co-chairs, Ashish Elvani, Marcos and Alejandro Borgironi, Hans Paul Berkler, Eduardo Elstein, and Patricia Spinoza Cantellano. This morning I welcome over 1,100 leaders from over 63 countries from all of the world's regions who are joining us here today in Buenos Aires. I would particularly like to thank the ministers and representatives of over 12 Latin American governments gathering this morning and tomorrow in Argentina. Thank you for being here. I would also very especially like to thank the representatives of Latin American youth through the global shapers attending, as well as the – they'll be meeting in the city of Córdoba over the weekend to give us insights and perspectives of youth with a visionary approach and with all of the energy they can contribute to our beloved Latin America. I would also like to welcome the young global leaders from all over the world who have been gathering since the beginning of this week here in Buenos Aires and also special thanks to the young global leaders from Argentina who for many years had invited us to hold our regional meeting in this wonderful country. The World Economic Forum also expresses its solidarity to Colombia, to Peru, and to the Latin American communities which unfortunately suffer as a result of natural disasters. We convey our affection to all those who are now suffering from these hardships. And now I will switch to English. At the time of intense political cycles, with ten elections coming in the next two years, it is also slowly recovering with economic rates but with remaining societal challenges and demands. We need to increase productivity and prioritize policies to continue delivering on the economic and the social fronts by investing in people, in institutions, and in infrastructure as one of our co-chairs shared earlier this morning. At the same time, global shifts and hemispheric geopolitical adjustments have a political and an economic impact on Latin America as do the COP21 and the Sustainable Development Goals agendas that set out an important consensus for Latin America and for the rest of the globe and thus offer an ideal space for private public collaboration. All of these changes are taking place in the midst of a bigger one. This is the fourth industrial revolution. All these changes provide through technological change and innovation to connect people in remote areas, to modernize industries, to transform jobs, and to provide many new opportunities for entrepreneurs and for individuals in the region. Latin America's future should then embrace and leverage the fourth industrial revolution to deliver sustainable, inclusive growth and continue reducing poverty. All these require the leadership and the committed engagement across all levels of society. I would like to express our hope for the current global and regional conditions to help catalyze practical integration in Latin America. It's my best wish for the Ministers of Mercosur and the Pacific Alliance who are also gathering here in Buenos Aires. I wish you every success and for the rest of our participants. I wish you a very fruitful, successful day and hope you will continue to contribute to the prosperity of Latin America. Thank you very much. I would now like to ask our Founder and Executive Chairman, Professor Klaus Schwab, to address the audience. Thank you, Professor. What great pleasure, Mr. President, to be back here in Argentina. I remember when we met in Davos, you described the potential of Argentina. Now, after having assumed the highest responsibility in this country, we see how you use this potential and you put Argentina really back on the geoeconomic and geopolitical map. I just would like to underline what Marisol said. We are at the beginning of a completely new age dominated by technological progress. And in the future, the cards of competitiveness will be redistributed. Innovation will be the key, the decisive factor to survive in the landscape, in the competitive landscape of tomorrow. Mr. President, I was very delighted to see a headline in Financial Times. As I think it was last week, we said, Buenos Aires heading directly from the 19th to the 21st century. That's what we wish to do together. That's what we wish to do together. We know the big challenges can only be solved. The big opportunities can only be exploited if there is public-private cooperation. If all stakeholders, inclusive the young generation, civil society sitting here in this room, really cooperate. If everybody serves more, the community he belongs to or she belongs to, not just his own interests. And I think here you are a good example with your personal engagement for the public good. I just would like to mention one other reason why it is so important to keep an eye on Argentina. We should not forget, next year you will have the presidency of the G20. And we all know what issues, I don't envy you because there will be so many issues on the agenda. But I know under your leadership the world, not only Argentina, will make progress to create the base for a more prosperous, a more peaceful future. And now, ladies and gentlemen, join me in welcoming very cordially the President of Argentina. Good morning and welcome to each and every one of you. It's so good to be here today working. I would like to welcome all those of you visiting us from around the world and especially from our own region. I hope you will also have some time to get to know more about us, to visit and do a bit of sightseeing and see the city and the country. Cordoba is also a lovely place. I know you'll be there at the weekend but there are so many other places worth visiting. And when you get to see them, you take a liking to them and you want to see them more and more, especially at a time as unique as this one. And I would like to make three brief comments before moving on to our conversation with Professor Schwab regarding developments in Argentina in the region and around the world. And first off, I would also like to say that we are delighted to have the World Economic Forum being held in Buenos Aires, Argentina after so many years as it is an intelligent platform for exchanges between the public and private sectors and for designing long-term policies, which is what we all need. Now, on Argentina, thank you for your comments, Professor. It is clear that what started 15 months ago in our country is much deeper and profound than just an economic change. It's a cultural change. It is a change based on a year-long learning process during which we were led along the wrong paths and by values that did not really represent the essence of the Argentine people. Today, we are determined to bet on the future. This room has the scent of the future, a future based on the truth, based on putting problems on the table, dealing with them, and solving them. It's about being predictable. We want to be reliable because clearly, trust is the driver for growth in any society. And for that, we also believe in the importance of dialogue as an instrument that had been lost in Argentina. Dialogue within and with the rest of the world to find the best roots for development. Because as you said, for next year's G20, today it may perhaps look more clear and stable which way Argentina is going than which way the world at large is going. So we now have a lot more to offer than we did in the recent past. So along those lines in terms of rebuilding trust, we've started by doing the profound work on the solid foundations needed to build a true epic journey, I would call it. So this is why we've got out of our default. We have sorted out the exchange market so that people who invest here know they can take their money whenever they choose to do so, being confident that Argentina will continue to grow and that reinvestment will be possible at all times. Also dealing with a central matter which always damages those who have less and something which is really a factor of poverty and of no growth. Inflation, inflation has been put at the center of our action agenda and we've been lowering inflation rates and we need to continue to work until we get to single digit inflation that will protect the wages of workers. But as part of the long-term endeavours, we have also launched the most important infrastructure program in our whole history and the core of that is connecting ourselves, connecting the Argentine peoples. So as part of that exchange based on effective approaches and on tangible approaches, we'll be able to really make the best use of the resources in our countries, which are both physical and virtual. As you pointed out, as part of the technological revolution, if our youth are not connected through the internet, they will not be part of the future and of the conversation regarding the future. And I believe in the context of these changes that we have embarked upon, we have been able to start growing slowly, as you said during your introduction, but the trend has already changed and that in itself is important. And in order to speed up that growth process, we need to ratify the conviction in what we have done and we need to enhance the work and cooperation we have engaged in. We need to enhance instruments that will build up trust so that the return of credit to Argentina, which is helping our companies re-equip and purchase new technologies and also hire new workers, as has been the case for the last seven months, with formal employment growing in Argentina. We want that process to accelerate and also the return of credit for people. As a whole, after over 50 years in Argentina, it is now again possible to buy homes with 30-year loans. And that is quite a revolution. And the same goes for trade opening when it comes to connecting. This will make it possible for this huge country to be effectively interconnected with him and with the world. With Argentines having access to computers at international prices, computers which enable education and an improvement in productivity and in what we're doing. And this is just the beginning. Believe me, you're at the right place at the right time and I hope over the next few days you'll find initiatives to really invest in being part of Argentina's growth and on the region. Now, the region exhibits the same features and potential of Argentina, perhaps not to the same degree because in the region there has been higher growth during the last decade as a result of good terms of trade and growth policies in global trade which have now slowed down a little bit, perhaps. But if we look in depth, I am also very optimistic when looking at the region as a whole because we have a way out not only to the Atlantic and to the Pacific, but also we are one of the most important peace zones in the world which is a central element these days and we also have vast potential led by Argentina in terms of one of the major demands of the future which is food security as well as when it comes to energy security. So I think this integration path that we are embarking on from Mercosur first and which we hope will also extend bridges to the Pacific Alliance, we think this is highly promising. During our last meeting with Brazil, we agreed to unify the terms of exchange and the sanitary and phytosanitary and technological rules in order to really start to deepen integration and we are ready for the third pillar. Certainly the world offers more doubts today than certainties, but Argentina was isolated for many years and it could see that all that brought was more poverty and our youth wants to become integrated, wants to be part of this dynamic world. So we believe that the way to go is intelligent integration into the world and from the Mercosur perspective we are very enthused by seeing new dialogue and negotiations with new countries and blocks around the world and we believe that is the right way to go, we think that's the path to growth and to quicker, faster development because the greatest challenge is not globalization, the greatest challenge is actually the technological leap we are experiencing these days which will continue to surprise us over the course of the next five, ten years and if you want to really shut yourself down and remain isolated from the technological revolution that will be tough and it will only delay the arrival of innovation. We need to be smart in order to be part of the innovation agenda and to understand that we need to prepare our children today at school for jobs that don't even exist today yet and that requires that all of the community sit down around a table to understand how we are going to train our young people for those new college jobs. So thank you once again for visiting us. We hope these will be highly useful days and I will have a conversation with the professor. So thank you once again and welcome once more. Thank you very much Mr. President, you have shown to us how to lay the ground and re-establish trust inside the country but also of the international community. Now when you look at the future, you mentioned the emphasis of inflation infrastructure, what if I go until the end of your mandate, what else would you like to have achieved? What are the big still missing elements in your program which wait for implementation? Well, the first thing professor, the first thing we have committed to as a government and to which I have committed as president myself is poverty reduction. Argentina has been dragging along years of frustration of unkept promises which have really caused a lot of annoyance and what I want today as president is for us to redirect that annoyance and turn it into energy to build a future and for the future no metrics will help us if we don't really achieve a systematic substantial reduction of poverty. We have talked about zero poverty which is a path towards that ideal which we know may take decades but the important thing here is that every day, every year we manage to reduce it more and more and as part of that priority poverty reduction is achieved by creating opportunities, by creating jobs and in order to create jobs as we just said, we need to create an atmosphere of trust, we need to be predictable, believable, we need for the rules of the game to remain stable so that the Argentines themselves and the world will invest and develop new alternatives in terms of creation and on that path a country as ours which was isolated for such a long time really lost the muscle of competitiveness of productivity so I do strongly believe in what we're doing in these dialogue groups with the federal government, the provincial governments, the labour sector, the business sector, all of them there, the workers, business, politicians, setting the rules, the conditions, making shared efforts so whatever we do we do better and this has already succeeded a lot in terms of a key resource for the country which is energy. You know we have one of the largest world reserves of shale gas and we have now launched a virtuous investment cycle which I hope will speed up more and more until we get to over 20 billion dollars a year in a couple of years so that we Argentines have energy in sufficient amounts and at a cheap price so that the industries will be able to add value and create jobs and the same we have achieved for the automobile industry we have millions of dollars of investments announced to produce quality international oriented products and the same thing with the construction industry and we hope to do the same with telecoms and with agriculture on a sector basis because agriculture is already leading a major growth force in Argentina we're among the most competitive in the world in that field so I think the big challenge for Argentina now is to really channel the huge human talent of this country coupled with the natural resources within the framework of competitive labor and work structures and I think we're achieving this even though in days like these you hear more about conflict than about agreement in Argentina you can now see more agreements being reached than ever before in the recent past so we Argentines have come to the realization that the future is up to us and if we work in a coordinated fashion speaking with the truth Argentina will certainly be the highest growth country in the next 20 years Mr. President you emphasize the importance of regional integration when you come from outside the region you're always struck by the multitude of regional arrangements I was very surprised to see that now you so it's not only the Argentinian flex but the Mercosur flex behind I think it was your desk yesterday but how do you see you see development of so small formalistic structures to keep Latin America together well they are professor I also think there has been a change of vision in Brazil first of all Brazil faces a major political and structural discussion to tackle one of the evils that boycott growth in any country which is corruption it is impossible to have a sustainable growth model if it coexists with significant levels of corruption so Brazil is doing something that is foundational and I think out of this process Brazil will emerge a lot stronger which is very good for Argentina as Brazil is our main partner within Mercosur alongside Paraguay and Uruguay and as part of that critical view and vision in Brazil now we see that we used to have a very closed block one of the most closed blocks in the world and that led to frustration and that did not generate the sort of growth that Brazil and the whole region needs so I think everyone has opened up to understand that the first step which is integration within Mercosur followed by another step with this integration with the Pacific Alliance that'll be key and we know that these things are measured over the course of years several years but I hope that in the next decade we'll be able to see Argentina and Latin America integrated with infrastructure interconnecting the different components and sectors of our countries and Argentina will have a lot to contribute in the energy sector with the unconventional energy sources and renewables and the more traditional conventional energy sources and I think that structure promises a lot in terms of growth potential for the coming years we need to firmly believe in this many of us are convinced of this being the case I don't know if you may have heard that we have had the second most important tax regularization scheme in history 115 billion dollars were regularly declared now by Argentines and they will help boost this new development stage in Argentina in the region is Venezuela Venezuela has also in the OS deliberation shown that Latin America still has an ideological split could you say some words how you see how the world could help and of course Latin America could help Venezuela to find a path back to democracy I think you are rubbing it in where it hurts the most for us Latin Americans I think what is now happening also has a positive side after years of euphemisms and evasive statements we are starting to define and describe things as they are we're telling it like it is in Venezuela there is no democracy human rights have been violated there are political detainees for no cause and for the first time in years we have adopted a coherent consistent stance we have suspended Venezuela from Mercosur and we want there to be an electoral schedule that is respected that political prisoners are released and the organization of American states has issued a statement in the same direction the bad thing is that two or three years ago when I spoke on this I was actually still the mayor of the city of Buenos Aires at the time and everyone said that Venezuela couldn't be any worse than it was and a couple of years later Venezuela is slipping down more and more which means that the Venezuelan people is going through a very hard time so in addition to our statements and declarations and conviction we need to stay on top of the matter professor because it's unacceptable for there to be such situations in the 21st century situations like the ones we see in the Republic of Venezuela so let us hope that soon there will be an election calendar and that the Venezuelans may actually elect those who will lead them to the future a future which after such a profound big crisis like the one they've been going through will require a lot of effort for them to you know have new authorities would not mean that the legacy problems which are even greater than the ones we inherited after 12 years that left us quite close to the situation of Venezuela but still Argentina's strength managed to prevent this but the sooner they can choose the sooner the recovery process will begin in our sister nation Venezuela Mr. President I would like you to address specifically first the young generation here and with a message and second the business community what would you like and you explained your policies but what would you like some to do let's start to see business people first what do you expect from the business people here in the country develops when we can all grow and the basis for growth is personal development through work and work can be diverse in social assistance in teaching and in the creation of goods and services and that is where the business community has a fundamental role to play because in Argentina professor for many years we divided things the small business were the good guys and the large business was the bad guys and a country really succeeds when small companies become medium-sized enterprises and when medium-sized enterprise become big companies it's not that if you succeed you're a bad guy that's a first mindset we need to change as part of this cultural change we are undertaking in this country and I hope everyone will understand that that sort of growth will have many more chances if instead of being based on undue benefits or on artificial advantages or on undue improper links between the private and public sector it is based on clear rules of the game and on the stability of rules on having as part of that stability access to long-term credit that will enable you to blend your talent with the financial resources in order to be able to develop your projects and that's exactly what we're doing now in Argentina so that's why we need to believe that this is a virtuous process which clearly is not magic no country has been able to do things in only 15 months every country that has overcome wars for instance took decades to do so and Argentina may not have had something as violent as a war but we have had a level of internal confrontation which was lose lose for everyone no one won as a result of that systematic confrontation this constant attempt to identify culprits for what happened what we need to understand today is that we need to put our potential at the service of building a future and the future is built through joint work between the private and public sectors based on clear rules without improper advantages and I think that Argentina through agribusiness through energy through tourism sustainable mining with international standard industrial sectors with services that have added value plus everything else we can create has I would say endless possibilities of growth the sky is the limit by far I would say we are the country's best place to really take a leap and assume the leadership that the whole world has always expected us to exercise so as I said at the outset I think you're at the right place at the right time listening to you listening to you I'm just reminded that in the age of the fourth industrial revolution it's not anymore the big fish we eat the small fish but it's a fast fish which eats the slow fish and you are becoming a very fast fish as far as I understand now to conclude what is your message to the young generation here because they are our future first of all the fact that no matter how much effort we make those of us who are my age are already quite getting on in years in terms of what we're doing and there are lots of challenges in terms of the innovations we see around the world but for those who are younger this is second nature it comes naturally and in that regard Argentina professor has had very interesting success stories at the last business forum I was with four unicorns as they call them who belong to that generation and who've done international standard stuff and I think that's demonstration of what we can actually do if we have the solid foundations to really support the entrepreneurial world technology clearly shows that large business will be expelling people in the coming years and that the big job generators will be small businesses and that's where we need entrepreneurship to really gather speed this is why we're so happy to have this law on entrepreneurs and law on small and medium-sized enterprises you see we are trying to speed up mechanisms so that the public sector can facilitate instead of obstruct new initiatives and obviously professor all of this needs to be rooted in education that's part of the discussion in this new argentina it's not just about comprehensive smart social policies but the key instrument that affords equal opportunity which is public education and we are conducting a discussion based on a successful experience in the city of Buenos Aires when we innovated the children improved their ability to incorporate knowledge and as our minister says for jobs that do not yet exist that is the greatest challenge we need to teach our children with a completely different open perspective in a world in which often teaching is done the same way it's been done for the last 100 years and that shows that change sometimes arouses fear and as a result of fear people prefer to stick to what they already know and that leads to a culture clash and a clash in terms of the opportunity so there too i need for young entrepreneurs and the community as a whole to join the discussion as to what the educational model for the future of argentina will be and has to reflect this world of innovation in which vehicles will be self-propelled in which artificial intelligence will continue to advance the genetic revolution will continue to bring surprises all are things that will need to create quality jobs and in which the argentines and history has shown this as scientists and as drivers of development can also play a leading role and of course we welcome all those of us joining us on this and who can help us along that road so thank you once again for this great opportunity and i do hope that these meetings will be a true success in terms of the future thank you professor let's talk mr president you just stressed the importance of entrepreneurship i would add the importance of social entrepreneurship and it has become a tradition of our opening sessions in all regions always to conclude honoring and celebrating social entrepreneurship so i might ask hilda schwab to join us on the stage the real boss excellencies ladies and gentlemen and dear friends there is one group as claustrad mentions that has not been mentioned at the beginning uh and we are devoting now the last couple of minutes of this opening session to them the social entrepreneurs with the social entrepreneurship award the schwab foundation wants to recognize and celebrate social innovation inclusiveness and social progress the 25 social entrepreneurs who are participating in this meeting have all been distinguished for their contribution to improve the lives of thousands if not millions of people they are based in all countries throughout latin america working in diverse fields and our pioneers in developing new methods to tackling malnutrition diabetes blood cancer inventing new technologies for people with disabilities for preventive medical care education and research in biodiversity organic agriculture i could go on and on in short they are all working with the primary goal in mind as you mentioned mr president to reduce poverty or eradicate poverty as a final goal there is a lot of talk recently that we must develop new narratives positive narratives the social entrepreneurs have amazing stories to tell and you will hear two of them right now we have the pleasure of awarding two social entrepreneurs for latin america 2017 social inclusion and poverty alleviation remain high on the agenda of the latin american region often social entrepreneurs step in to fill the gaps in service delivery and social programs to low-income communities they do this through their innovative business models in areas such as health digital economy technology and financial services they are vibrant catalysts in the growth of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in latin america at the wake of the force industrial revolution gives me great pleasure to come now to our first awardee carlos berreira co-founder and co of levox please join me on stage levox is a company that creates technologies for people with disabilities it offers a unique software for tablets and smartphones that allows people with challenges to oral communication to communicate and learn levox software interprets the user's movements through intelligent algorithms adapting to each disability users can adapt the content of the application with 25 000 images to choose from with freedom to create new ones they can do also add photos and create icons and descriptions the organization has been awarded several times for technical technological innovation please join me in congratulating carlos berreira i would like now to invite our other social entrepreneur of the year awardee latin america on stage if muri founder and ceo fundacion capital fundacion capital is a pioneer in inclusive finance and economic citizenship they help lift millions of families out of poverty by building long-term assets through financial services and literacy programs fundacion capital does this through innovative and accessible technology they also work with governments and financial institutions to develop policies and services that facilitate transformative social protection and economic opportunities fundacion capital currently works in 12 latin american countries including argentina in two african countries and is now expanding into asia please join me in congratulating if muri for his award thank you to conclude our award ceremony i would like now to ask all the other social entrepreneurs to join us on stage for a group picture