Brazilian PM bucks trends at Davos 2014
DECLINING numbers of women are attending Davos this year with women accounting for just 15 per cent of the 2,633 attendees, compared to 17 per cent last year.
Fighting the decline is Brazil’s leftist President Dilma Rousseff who will attend this week to try to convince the world’s business elite that her country is still a good investment despite three years of mediocre growth.
The one-time Marxist guerrilla has decided to reach out to the rich and powerful for the first time at the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos to reassure them she is business-friendly and not fiscally profligate.
That is a big turnaround for a leader with a reputation for heavy-handed policies that have squeezed profits of some companies and hurt share prices.
Increasing interest in the Brazilian leader is no surprise: she is widely favoured to win a second term and decide the direction of the world’s seventh largest economy for another four years.