 Good morning, your Excellency Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China, Frau Bundespräsidentin Doris Leuthardt, dear guests, it's a great pleasure to start the annual meeting 2017 with this official opening session. And I would like first to introduce Doris Leuthardt, who is the President of the Swiss Confederation and the Federal Councilor of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications of Switzerland. I also would like to welcome all your colleagues, Mrs. President, here in the room of the Swiss Government, and I would like to use this opportunity to thank you, the Swiss Government, the Government of our host canton, Frau Bünden, and of course, the Administration and Government of our host city, Davos, I would like to thank some all very cordially for the great hospitality which we always find in this marvelous mountain town. Madam President, as you said in your New Year's address, despite all the complex challenges that the world faces, Switzerland remains a stable rock in turbulent waters. It is built, as highlighted also in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report, on an innovative economy and on a society where the notion of solidarity is still very well anchored. You also mentioned that you make progress in these turbulent times, requires patience, perseverance and self-confidence, and that to maintain cohesion in our societies calls for greater mutual listening and understanding. In short, it calls for dialogue. And this is exactly what the Forum stands for. And this is also the reason why Switzerland, Frau Bünden and Davos is the ideal place to provide hospitality to so many dignitaries. Madam President, the floor is yours. Professor Schwab, Mr. President Xi Jinping, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen. Mr. President, I warmly welcome you to Switzerland and to Davos for this year's annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. Professor Schwab, it is a honour for Switzerland every year to be the host country year after year for the web annual meeting, because this offers a stage for world leaders in business and politics to exchange views and, if all goes well, work to beg together toward the greater good of the world. The past year has shown us that the world is undergoing a period of fundamental change. Extremism, violence and conflict draw ever closer to regions previously regarded as safe. The European Union, stable for so long, now has its work cut out. In many regions of the world, nationalism and protectionism are gaining the upper hand. I observe these developments with concern, for they challenge the cohesion of international community and make multilateral relations more difficult, both in economic and political terms. Each one of these problems is not difficult to solve on its own level, but collectively they lead us to a situation where the world is consistently being perceived as becoming a more fragile structure, insecurity is spreading, people are looking for some kind of safe harbor in small scale structures and the future is bringing new challenges. The economic environment is changing, the concatenation of indebtedness, low levels of interest rate and a weakening of central banks is a new and explosive phenomenon. In many countries this combination has reached a very threatening level and it's going to become difficult to carry out the necessary investments to guarantee stability and also to set a basis for growth and prosperity. Because of climate change, ecology is becoming more and more important. The Paris Agreement has come into effect and this is set to the stage for a reasonable energy, climate and environmental policy. China is on track and therefore it is a good model for other countries. But how will the different countries commit to these goals when it comes to implementation, particularly the United States of America? Ladies and gentlemen, education policy is a key for the future. More than 200 million people are without work worldwide. 70 million of these are under the age of 25 years. This leads to a lot of feelings of hopelessness and frustration. But if the young generation is to be able to develop prospects of the future, we've got to invest in initial and further training. The rich are becoming richer. More than 500 million people are deemed to be rich. In the newly industrialized countries, a middle class has developed. But on the southern ridges of the Eurozone and the United States, we see that the middle class is getting poorer and more than 1.2 billion people worldwide are living on less than $1.25 a day. We've got to find strategies so that the sharp divide between rich and poor doesn't get larger and so that we don't see increasing strain being placed on social peace. We're familiar with all these problems, but we haven't found any solutions to them. But what is new is that the digitization process has triggered a fourth industrial revolution. And this is putting the world on a completely new foundation. But we've got to make sure that we don't lead to the development of a new category of winners and losers and lead to which takes advantage and a lot of disadvantaged people who feel that they are the losers that will not take us further forward. Digitization must be democratized. Just as knowledge was democratized when the printing press was first invented. At times of fundamental change, having something to orient ourselves by is important. We need beacons which show us the direction in which we should be moving. Which gives us security and stability or put in other terms, we need to have responsive and responsible leadership leadership with the ability to draw the right conclusions and to take good and responsible decisions. Leadership in order to ensure that these are decisions can be implemented credibly and to involve the population leadership so that we can forge cooperation and alliances in a constructive and multinational manner. And to achieve this, we've also got to rid ourselves of the idea that there is a global solution to all these problems. Although we all live on the same planet, there are a lot of people who live in different worlds and those worlds are often opposite to one another. And that is why there is never going to be a one-size-fits-all solution to all problems, a solution that is valid for everybody in all countries. However, there are many different solutions. At the national level, Switzerland has succeeded, of course, in a very small space and over its long history to get different cultures, languages and minorities to cohabitate, to cohabit peacefully. At the world level, process that has been implemented with the Paris Agreement on climate has shown that the solutions do exist, an international agreement to which 195 states have signed up, an agreement which takes into account the socioeconomic situation of different countries and which gives them the necessary margin for maneuver in order to allow them to find an adequate solution. An agreement whose watchword is responsibility is at the global level but the implementation has to take place at the national level. The world of tomorrow will make less of a distinction between industrialised countries and developing countries and will make less of a distinction between elite and people. We are all the people. We are all members of this world. And that is why we've got to understand that we're not there just to direct things, but to cooperate in a responsible manner. The Paris Agreement could become a model in this field. And we believe that Davos can contribute to initiating and forging a new way of thinking. I hope that you will have an excellent WEF 2017 and a lot of fruitful discussions.