CM, IT Minister leave for Davos to take part in WEF

Hyderabad: Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and IT Minister D Sridhar Babu have left for Davos, in Switzerland, to participate in the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum from January 15 to 19.

Soon after taking charge, Revanth Reddy was invited by WEF to participate in this year’s event. Since Telangana formation, this is the first time for the CM to lead the official delegation. The WEF provides an opportunity to meet and interact with top industry leaders, both from India and abroad, and share the new government’s vision and priorities. It is also an ideal platform to showcase strength of the State as a leading IT and life sciences hub and attract investments.

The IT minister’s team has worked out a very packed schedule at Davos. “Chief Minister and I will be meeting 70 industry leaders in three days. They include CEOs and CXOs of top global companies like Novartis, Medtronic, Astra Zeneca, Google, Uber, Mastercard, Bayer, LDC and UPL. We will also be meeting captains of Indian industry, including Tata, Wipro, HCL Tech, JSW, Godrej, Airtel, Bajaj. Interaction with leading business chambers like CII and NASSCOM as well as media networks are also planned,” said Sridhar Babu during an informal interaction with the media.

The WEF is the premier international platform where government leaders, global CEOs, industry captains, social entrepreneurs and newsmakers meet every year in a collaborative spirit to address global issues and shape the agenda for government, industry and societal action. It is an invite only event and attracts participation from over 3,000 delegates every year, including representatives from 100 governments, top 1,000 global companies, all leading international organisations, NGOs and media.

The IT Minister said they were leaving no stone unturned to make it a very successful and productive trip. “We expect to sign several MoUs and close significant investment deals in different sectors like pharma, electronics, data centres, defence and aerospace, food processing and renewable energy. We will be sharing more details about these every day from Davos,” he said.

The minister said the CM was also invited to speak at the WEF Congress Centre, a special honour to get during his first visit to Davos. He will be sharing his views during the panel discussion on transforming healthcare, digitally, which is also a key priority for the government. He will also be attending another high level WEF event on ‘Food Systems and Local Action’ where he will speak on impact of climate change on agri-economy and measures to promote climate-resilient agriculture, while protective farmers livelihoods. The IT minister will participate in a panel discussion on ‘developing skills for AI’ being hosted by the AI industry. I will also be separately meeting several tech companies, trade organisations and NRI entrepreneurs.

The delegation will also be meeting top management of WEF, including its president BrendeBorge and several sector heads.