The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2025 set to be held in Switzerland’s Davos in January will witness the presence of at least three chief ministers, state ministers and other leaders from India, who will join over 100 CEOs and global dignitaries. Chief ministers including Devendra Fadnavis, Chandrababu Naidu and Revanth Reddy will be present.
The Andhra Pradesh CM is expected to be joined by his son and senior Andhra Pradesh minister Nara Lokesh, while Karnataka’s Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, Tamil Nadu Minister T R B Rajaa and Uttar Pradesh minister Suresh Khanna will also be there for the five-day annual congregation in the Swiss ski resort town starting on January 20, 2025.
Senior ministers in attendance
Even though the list of senior ministers is yet to be finalised, it is likely that senior Union ministers will also be present in the meeting. Aswini Vaishnawm, Smriti Irani and Hardeep Singh Poori were among the few ministers who had attended the last WEF annual meeting.
The meeting has also been attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the past, however, there is no official word so far about his participation in the high-profile summit, for which the main theme this time would be ‘collaboration for the intelligent age’.
Expected to be attended by nearly 50 heads of states and governments from across the world, the annual meeting would take place in the backdrop of a change of regime in the US and various geopolitical and macroeconomic issues including the Ukraine war and the continuing West Asia crisis.
The 2018, WEF annual meeting was attended by both Modi and Donald Trump for the first time as India’s Prime Minister and the US President, respectively.
Top business leaders to attend WEF
Top executives from Reliance, Tata, Adani, Birla, Bharti, Mahindra, Godrej, Jindal, Bajaj and Vedanta groups will also feature in the meeting. Apart from Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, the next-generation leaders from their groups are also expected to be present.
It will also see the presence of technology leaders including Salil Parekh of Infosys, Rishad Premji of Wipro, Sumant Sinha of ReNew, Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm and Adar Poonawalla of Serum Institute.
‘Collaboration or the Intelligent Age’
The 55h annual meeting of the Geneva-based WEF will be held under the theme of ‘Collaboration for the Intelligent Age’. According to the WEF, the meeting will provide a international p;latform for dialogue and cooperation bringing together a diverse community of stakeholders who seek to connect the dots in an era of complexity.
Several sessions are expected to be attended by Indian leaders, including one on ‘India’s Economic Blueprint’.
As one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies, India has been growing at over 8 per cent and this growth has been buoyed by a focus on promoting local innovation and startups in technology and manufacturing, representing a departure from traditional export-oriented models.
The leaders would deliberate how has India capitalised on this new blueprint and to what extent can it continue to drive global growth.
(With PTI inputs)
