From 17 Jan to 21 Jan 2017, the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting was held in Davos, Switzerland. The World Economic Forum, also known as “Economic United Nations” and “vane of the world economy”, is an unofficial foundation committed to the study and discussion of global economic issues and to promote international cooperation.

The theme of this year’s Davos Forum is “Responsive and Responsible Leadership”. Nearly 1700 attendees including 50 national dignitaries, politicians, business leaders, academia and media attended. Mr. Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, delivered the opening plenary speech about globalization at Davos. Mr. Raymond Yung, CEO of L.R. Capital Group was invited to attend the Davos Forum to meet with a number of political and business elites to exchange views on global economic development, and to engage in discussion on deepening mutually beneficial cooperation and promoting the development of globalization.

This year’s Davos Forum focused on the five challenges facing in 2017, including how to implement the Fourth Industrial Revolution; how to build a dynamic and inclusive global governance system; how to restore global economic growth; how to reform the capitalist markets and to restore the contract between business and society; how to resolve the common identity crisis caused by the erosion of traditional norms in order to eliminate people’s pessimism, negativism and cynicism and so on. This is the first time for Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Davos as well as the first time that a Chinese leader has attended the WEF annual meeting. President Xi Jinping’s “China Program” has received wide attention from all sectors of society, as the world economic recovery is in the doldrums and the development model adjustment has encountered bottlenecks, leading to the uncertainties of the globalization process. Mr. Yung and his team attended the opening speech of President Xi Jinping, and met with a number of important guests in the Forum.

Among which, Mr. Yung met with a number of international politicians, businessmen and partners including Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum; David William Donald Cameron, Britain’s former Prime Minister; Navdeep Bains , Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development of Canada; David McKay, Chief Executive Officer of Royal Bank of Canada; Sergio Ermotti, CEO of UBS AG; Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs; Jamie Dimon, Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., Robert E. Moritz, Global Chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Edouard Cukierman, Managing Partner of Catalyst Investments, Hiroto Saikawa, Co-CEO of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. Apart from this, Mr. Yung also met with a number of Chinese guests namely Xu Niansha, Chairman of China Poly Group Corporation, Li Xiaopeng, Vice Chairman & Group President of China Merchants Group, Frank Tang, CEO of Fountainvest Partners, to carry out in-depth discussion on the strategic plan of L.R. Capital and the future cooperation opportunities.

The latest wave of globalization began in the 1980s, which was driven by scientific and technological breakthrough, initiated by multinational companies and backed by the United States and other developed countries. However, the growth momentum of this wave of globalization is gradually weakened, following the financial crisis encountered by the developed economies in 2008. The unexpected “Brexit” outcome and US president election results in 2016 further accelerated this process. In this context, populism, protectionism, isolationism and other kinds of anti-globalization trends have become the popular discussion topics in the Forum.

In an interview with ITV News, a well-known financial media in the UK, Mr. Yung expressed that an important and irresistible upcoming trend is to develop an open and globalized economy that can promote the effective allocation of factors of production across the globe. Mr. Yung spoke highly of the speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the opening ceremony. He noted out that the “China Program” put forward by President Xi has aroused the sympathy of Chinese and foreign enterprises and China’s strong support for globalization is also encouraging. This has given many international investors and entrepreneurs the confidence to believe that China will be more open by increasing imports and foreign direct investment. The reason China supports globalization is that it also benefits from the idea.

Moreover, Mr. Yung said that L.R. Capital Group is committed to acting as a linkage of global capital and resources. By adhering to the concept of integration of resources, forward-looking industry thinking and professional management style, L.R. Capital aims to identify and nurture enterprises that have leading innovative technology, in a bid to promote global economic development. L.R. Capital has emphasized on the investment in the Greater China region and will continue to help more and more Chinese companies to take advantage of advanced technology to penetrate the international market and network, and to lead more overseas capital to invest into China, to achieve interoperability and interconnection between resources and capital.