01/23/2016
Davos is officially done. I have to say it was a particularly exhausting but productive trip. Without further ado, here are my key takeaways from Davos 2016.
1. IMF growth downgrades kept coming for China, and the China delegation at Davos… wasn’t saying much of anything. There was even less government participation this year than usual. China is the voice that isn’t there at Davos. That said, Beijing ultimately has the tools to get through this... and the will to use them.
2. Everyone at Davos would be happy if the world hit the IMF’s 3.4% global growth forecast for 2016. Most don't think it’s likely.
3. On the bright side, renewable energy prospects never looked so good!
4. But while technology may have brought about an energy revolution, it’s also poised to bring about a labor revolution too. In the U.S., 47% of jobs are at high risk from automation. 65% of children entering primary school today will ultimately work in new job types that don’t yet exist. That’s pretty unnerving. Just wait til it gets to emerging markets.
5. All the talk about the Fourth Industrial Revolution got me curious, so I went to see the robot from South Korea. It had fallen over and was busy rebooting. Can’t replace us yet!
6. India is as rich today as the US was in 1881. And while Narendra Modi’s reform agenda is struggling, there's never been a better time to invest in India. Life’s good when you’re the last BRIC left standing.
7. Gender parity is improving, but we still have a long way to go. As Sheryl Sandberg put it, “Men still run the world – and I’m not sure it’s going that well.” But the Canadian cabinet was out in force.
8. The US was there for Germany when the Berlin Wall came down, but not at all when the walls are going up. At a time when European solidarity is most urgent, the nations of Europe stand critically divided.
9. But, as IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde pointed out, it’s in Europe’s economic interest to find a way to integrate refugees into the labor force rather than turning them away.
10. Overall, the mood at Davos this year was strongly negative, what with China’s market swings and plunging oil prices. It’s easy to get caught up in all that, but it’s also important to keep things in perspective. Like the fact that absolute poverty is on the downswing.
I hope you all enjoyed following along with me. In case you missed any of it, you can find my daily rundowns here, hereand here. Let’s do it again next year...
Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group, global research professor at New York University and foreign affairs columnist at TIME. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
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