CEOs see social security link to global prosperity

To reflect on the main theme at this year’s World Economic Forum summit, ‘Partnering for Security and Prosperity’, a plenary session kicked off here on Thursday with some of the best leaders across a spectrum of fields like business, finance, the non-profit sector and academia to explore ideas and policies that will help achieve this goal. Jose Maria Figueres, co-chief executive officer of the Forum, started the session by noting that security and prosperity are actually two sides of the same coin in the modern context.

Jack Straw, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Britain, said the global inter-dependence is the backdrop of the link between security and prosperity. While global economy expanded six-fold during the past 50 years international trade increased by 20-fold, he noted.

One of the India sidelights at the second day of the summit was a breakfast meeting of the Indo-Canada Business Council. While the Indian side was represented by telecom and IT minister Arun Shourie and Planning Commission member N.K. Singh among others, and James Peterson, Canadian minister of international trade and Jean Charest, premier of the Quebec province, and a few others represented the Canadian side. The Canadian trade minister highlighted the growing bilateral economic cooperation in recent times as also the greater presence of Indian companies in his country. He said six Indian IT companies are already present in Canada, and others like ICICI Bank has just opened a branch.