DUBAI, 8 June 2003 — Speaking on the Arab language TV news channel Al-Jazeera, World Economic Forum founder and President Klaus Schwab expressed his hope that the World Economic Forum’s Extraordinary Annual Meeting in Jordan will have a positive impact on the Arab region.
Speaking about the potential of the Arab world, he said: “If you look at the region it has 7.5 percent of the world’s population but only 2.5 percent of global economic production, so there is a lot of potential and the region has to be integrated better in the global economy.”
Professor Schwab said that the various communities who will come to the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Jordan — leaders from business, politics and religion as well as representatives of NGOs and civil society — will work together to develop a positive future.
“After so much confrontation in the region, what we need now is cooperation — and we see the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Jordan as a window of opportunity to address the economic and political issues and see how economic progress and social development can be achieved,” he added.
He spoke, too, of the initiatives that the World Economic Forum will be unveiling at the Extraordinary Annual Meeting. The Jordan Education Initiative will engage leading companies to bring technology into the classrooms of Jordan and improve lifelong learning opportunities for Jordan’s citizens; the Women Leaders Initiative will be working with women from the Arab world and the Western world to advance issues affecting them in the region; the Council of 100, a group of multidenominational religious leaders, will come together to address the tensions between Christianity and Islam; and the Young Arab Leaders group will produce a blueprint for the regeneration of the Middle East.
