I recently attended the World Economic Forum (WEF) “Annual Meeting of the New Champions”, also known as the Summer Davos, in the northern port city of Tianjin, China. The three day WEF conference attracted some 1,500 high profile leaders, academics and business leaders from almost 90 countries. I was flattered to be among the invitees.
Back in 2007, Comscore was honored to be named one of 47 Technology Pioneers by the WEF. To be selected as a Technology Pioneer, a company must be involved in the development of life-changing technology innovation and have the potential for long-term impact on business and society. In addition, it must demonstrate visionary leadership, show all the signs of being a long-standing market leader – and its technology must be proven. So, you can imagine how much I was looking forward to the meeting in Tianjin -- where Comscore was named one of twelve companies described as ‘Global Growth Shapers’.
The theme of this year’s conference was “Driving Growth Through Sustainability”, which, in the words of the WEF, recognizes that achieving sustainability requires committing to a new mind set – one that is determined to challenge long-held economic assumptions, rethink business models and explore scientific and technological solutions to foster innovation and creativity within organizations. It is also a theme that highlights the role of the New Champions and calls upon us to embrace a new holistic systemic and integrated approach to sustainability, focusing on not only environmental but also economic and social impact.
There were four main pillars to the conference:
I was particularly interested in the fourth pillar because it meshed with one of Comscore’s strategic imperatives: global expansion. Comscore now offers services in 43 individual countries, so I wanted to absorb any and all information about global trends.
Just prior to the start of the conference, the WEF published its “Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011” (compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers), which is one of the world’s most respected assessments of national competitiveness, providing valuable insights to the policies, institutions, factors that enable robust economic development and long term prosperity and providing a unique benchmarking tool for policy makers and businesses. I thought you would be interested in seeing some of the data contained in the report, so I’ve assembled some of the more interesting slides below. Note the much higher future economic growth that is expected in emerging countries but also the required need for these countries to install the infrastructure necessary to grow the consumer consumption portion of their GDP.
China’s Premier Wen Jiabao spoke at the conference and was particularly bullish on China’s prospects, saying that the surge in foreign investment demonstrated China’s continuing attraction to foreign investors and stressed Beijing would continue to “improve” laws and policies related to foreign enterprises. According to figures cited by Mr. Wen, more than 470 of the top 500 global corporations had established a presence in China. By July, China had received $1.05 trillion of foreign investment in cumulative terms, ranking first among developing countries for 18 consecutive years. In the first seven months of this year, foreign investment in China increased by 20.7% over the same period last year.
Mr. Wen added: “China’s economic growth has provided major development opportunities for multinationals and created huge demand for major economies and neighboring countries.” He said China would pursue and establish a long term mechanism to expand domestic consumption. Innovation, an upgrade of industrial infrastructure and advances in technology would lead to more sustainable development. The country’s economy certainly appears to be moving in the right direction and according to Justin Yifu Lin, chief economist of the World Bank, is predicted to grow by 9.5% this year! In comparison, the U.S. GDP grew by only 1.7% in the second quarter, marking the second consecutive quarter of decline as the effect of the government’s stimulus wears off and unemployment remains stubbornly high at 9.6%. It’s not a pretty picture.