Selected highlights so far from the second key day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland:
TOP STORY:
In Davos, Leaders Fret Over Fragmenting Global Economy
Geopolitical rivalry, technology decoupling and protectionism have increasingly altered the world's business and political landscape, adding new risks and threats and, for some, opportunity, say executives and officials at the World Economic Forum.
"We are very concerned about geo-economic fragmentation," said Gita Gopinath, the number two official at the International Monetary Fund, in an interview. In conversations with member countries and in Davos, "This is something that comes up a lot."
INTERVIEWS AND PANELS:
ESG is here to stay. That was the message of Bank of America Chief Executive Brian Moynihan as he responded to criticism of the movement pushing companies and investors to consider environmental, social and governance goals. CEOs view ESG goals such as combating climate change and making their workforce more diverse as integral to the long-term health of their companies. "They're going to run the companies based on a view of how to create long-term value and I don't think that gets derailed" by politics, he said.
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Japan's economy isn't at the stage when monetary policy can be normalized, economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said, after the Bank of Japan maintained its current ultra-easy stance at a policy meeting. "At this point, the way ahead for the economy is unclear. That's the way I understand the Bank of Japan's decision to keep policy on hold," Mr. Nishimura said during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
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Moderna Inc. plans to expand its mRNA vaccine production capacity, saying shots targeting different pathogens can be made in the same facility, Chief Executive Stephane Bancel said. "This is what gives me hope, not only for [coronavirus] variants, but also for other vaccines," Mr. Bancel said on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He cited Moderna's recent developments in RSV immunization as another application of the mRNA technology besides targeting Covid-19.
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Saudi Arabia, the world's fastest growing major economy and a top foreign-aid donor, has begun to condition its development assistance to other countries on the sort of ambitious economic reforms it has implemented at home. "We wanted to be a role model for the region and we are encouraging a lot of countries around us to really do reforms," Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan said Wednesday.
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Fully autonomous trucks, without safety drivers, could be on American roads within five years, said Volvo Group's chief technology officer. Lars Stenqvist, a member of the Swedish truck maker's executive board and executive vice president for truck technology, said the U.S. was moving faster than other places in experimenting and testing autonomous vehicles. "Confined areas are the starting point, it's happening today," Mr. Stenqvist said. "The big thing is highway operations. We certainly believe in highway operations. We see the starting point, the market that will take off first, is the U.S.," he said.
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The current mood is mixed, there is finally light at the end of the tunnel insofar as inflation is concerned, and there is general optimism, according to JPMorgan EMEA CEO Viswas Raghavan. Abundant cheap money has now gone and there is finally a supply constraint and a cost of capital, Raghavan says in a Bloomberg interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
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Reaching Uber Technologies Inc.'s goal of becoming a zero-emission transportation platform in the U.S., Canada and Europe by 2030 will be challenging, said Jennifer Vescio, the ride-hailing app's chief business development officer. "I fully admit the goal is going to be aggressive," Ms. Vescio said on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday. She said the company could meet that target, but it would be dependent upon partners including car manufacturers adopting electric-vehicle technology relatively quickly.
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The Global Battery Alliance, an organization made up of battery makers, auto and technology companies with support from governments, unveiled a plan to create a battery passport allowing consumers to compare batteries based on their carbon footprint and other sustainability aspects such as the possible use of child labor in mining raw materials. Working with battery manufacturers and makers of electric vehicles, such as Audi, the luxury car maker owned by Volkswagen and Tesla, the GBA told attendees of the World Economic Forum in Davos that it had created a public web site that allows consumers to compare various EV batteries based on a set of criteria.
MARKET TALK HIGHLIGHTS:
Companies are likely to step away from growth-at-all-costs investment strategies in 2023, and instead focus on efficiencies, Chairman and CEO of Nasdaq Adena Friedman says to CNBC in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
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Covid-19 is here to stay, but fresh social distancing measures are unlikely, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla says in an interview with CNBC at Davos. He says investigations by Pfizer and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found no cardiac safety concerns around its booster shots. "We constantly review and analyze data and we've seen not a single signal although we have distributed billions of doses."
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Europe could avoid a recession entirely, UniCredit's CEO Andrea Orcel says in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos. "Our view was a mild recession for this year, but since then, if we look at all the indicators we see, we probably see a risk on the upside. So we're looking at something that could even be no recession", Orcel tells CNBC.
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Many companies planning to float on the public market are likely to wait for volatility to abate, New York Stock Exchange President Lynn Martin says to CNBC in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos. In the meantime, this environment is making companies turn back to their fundamentals, looking at costs in particular instead of looking to please the market, she adds.
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Premium office buildings designed to attract employees back after the pandemic will continue to make real-estate investors money, but many owners have to upgrade or repurpose obsolete buildings in order to compete, JLL Chief Executive Officer and President Christian Ulbrich says in a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Residential rents are rising worldwide and governments are trying to regulate this down, but at the same time construction and renovation costs are sky high, the commercial-property firm's Ulbrich says.
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This item will be updated later Wednesday.
Full Davos coverage at: bit.ly/3wdVWSc
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-18-23 0844ET
