Schwab wants to prevent the World Economic Forum from being relocated to Singapore or the United States someday.
Keystone-SDA
Klaus Schwab wants to keep the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. He argued in an interview with the NZZ that a neutral platform is needed in neutral Switzerland. In his view, the WEF property in Cologny, near Geneva, ought to be transferred to public ownership.
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The man who stepped down as Chair of the World Economic Forum (WEF) a year ago is proposing to transfer the valuable plot of land at the WEF headquarters to the public sector in return for a lifelong right of use, thereby removing it from property speculation.
“It is important to me that the Forum and the foundation I set up remain connected to their purpose and to Switzerland,” he said in an interview with the Saturday edition of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
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He also wanted to prevent the World Economic Forum from being relocated to Singapore or the United States someday. “If the future management of the foundation feels committed to Switzerland, I see no reason at all not to carry out this transfer. The foundation would have a lifelong right of use,” said Schwab.
For him, Davos has always been the epitome of a global village and therefore the ideal venue for the annual meeting of the WEF.
Asked how he wanted to be remembered, Schwab, who turns 88 at the end of March, said it would be as someone who recognised and pointedly formulated that a company is not just an economic production unit, but a social organism that also has social obligations.
“And as someone who has recognised that global cooperation will not work sufficiently in the future if it only takes place between governments,” Schwab added. All stakeholders in society must be involved, he concluded.
Translated from German with AI/gw
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