The 2015 edition of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, opened yesterday and will continue until Saturday. The surprise is that it opened with an Italian party organized by ICE and offered to 2.500 global entrepreneurs, ministers, academic prime ministers from various parts of the world. The premier, Matteo Renzi, who arrived in the evening, will speak this morning at the "Transformational Leadership" plenary session. Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan is also expected.
Less confidence in growth.
The launch of the 2015 Forum takes place at a time when the escalation of terrorism is considered by the Gotha of world politics and economy to be the main threat to stability and recovery. The week will also offer ample insights of an economic-financial nature and the decisions that the ECB will take on Thursday (Mario Draghi in fact will not be in Davos) will bounce back live on the Swiss mountains.
The launch of the forum is somewhat pessimistic. Among the 1.322 top managers who responded to the traditional PwC survey, which kicks off the Davos WEF days - reports Ansa - the percentage of optimists has decreased compared to a year ago. It dropped from 44% to 37%. Worse still in Italy. Among the 50 CEOs who responded to PwC the optimists at the beginning of 2014, 43% were in line with the expectations of their colleagues. Now only 27% believe in growth.
The World Economic Forum is thus preparing to host a platoon of financiers and industrialists who appear less confident about the strength of the recovery than a year ago. A fear that - the Pwc survey reveals, reported by Ansa - does not concern everyone. In India, 62% of CEOs expect higher turnover in the next 12 months. In the US it stops at 46%. In Europe there are no more than 36% of British managers, 35% of Germans, 23% of French and 20% of Italians.
However, Italy's top managers are not only sending signs of concern. 80% believe that 2015 will be better than 2014. And, even more, there is an important trend reversal in employment and work, which is one of the turning points that most affects households and businesses, which the more he has committed and will continue to commit politics to the search for recipes. Will it be the Jobs Act effect? Impossible to say, explain the experts who oversaw the survey. But 36% of the Italian CEOs interviewed by the PWC consider an increase in the number of employees over the next 12 months. Perhaps among them is the CEO of FCA, Sergio Marchionne, who has announced hiring in Melfi. But a year ago the percentage was much lower, at 26%.
