After years of increasing globalization, the last five years have witnessed a seismic shift in global economic relations. The COVID pandemic and the resultant disruptions to global supply chains have heightened concerns about supply security and the preference for nearshoring. More importantly, geopolitical and strategic competition has led to policy driven fragmentation risks for the global economy. Today, global challenges such as climate change are more wide-spread and deeper than before and any sustainable solution requires global cooperation. However, geo-political tensions, including emanating from the war in Ukraine, are likely to make cooperation more difficult.
Meanwhile, the surge in inflation in many countries has resulted in a rapid pace of monetary tightening in the past year, particularly in the US. This has happened after a prolonged period of close-to-zero interest rates, rising debt ratios and increasing, sometime hidden, leverage. Maintaining global financial stability will also require closer cooperation amongst monetary and regulatory authorities. Similarly, with a large swathe of emerging markets and developing countries facing debt difficulties, international efforts to help the highly-indebted economies will be essential.
At the same time, the widespread and rapid pace of digitalization of the global economy has the potential to change gradually the nature of the global economy and deliver more services to most of the global population, including the marginalized groups. But data governance systems, both within economies and across economies, have yet to be developed to cope with the rapid progress of technology. Similarly, investments in green technologies to mitigate climate risk will become increasingly important for mankind and setting the proper governance standards will require more global cooperation.
Against this backdrop, this Conference will offer an opportunity for high-level and in- depth discussion on these issues.