Quotes from Davos

The delegates from the World Economic Forum have caught their flights and returned home. A lot of words were spoken giving a snapshot of the state of the world. Here is my selection:

“I call Cancún a big step for the community of nations.
But unfortunately, it’s also at the same time a very small step for the planet.”
Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Bonn

“Our [WTO] accession is good for the world. It is 10 years of sharing benefits and joint development – although some countries were doubtful whether we were able to honour our promises... About 10 years have passed, and the answer is on the wall. Our exports have increased by 4.9 times, imports have increased by 4.7 times, and GDP has nearly doubled.”
Chen Deming, Minister of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China

“I will not call China and India as 'emerging'. We are 're-emerging', because together we contributed 52% of the GDP of the world, until the 17th century... It is a re-balancing of the world economy. It is historical distortions getting corrected.”
Anand Sharma, Minister of Commerce and Industry of India

“We [in Greece] have been doing everything by the book. We’ve done what the recipe says. So why aren’t the markets responding?”
George A. Papandreou, Prime Minister of Greece

“Chancellor Merkel and myself never – and listen to me carefully here – never will turn our backs on the Euro. We will never drop the Euro…The Euro spells Europe. The Euro is Europe.”
Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France

“We will need to work together to manage the world economy so that it functions to meet our needs, rather than satisfying our greed. This means we will need to inject more compassion into our economic and social policy; that is not only fixated on growth, but on achieving growth with equity. And with promoting a caring and sharing society.”
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President of Indonesia

“It is not enough to have one’s own freedom. You have to respect the freedoms of others. This is the principle which is true for relations between democratic states.”
Dimitry Medvedev, President, Russian Federation