Egypt will participate in this week's World Economic Forum (WEF) in Switzerland, under the auspice of restoring international confidence in Egyt's economy, finance minister Ahmed Galal announced in a statement on Tuesday. Represented at the forum by Galal and interim Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi, Egypt's government plans to promote its ongoing economic reforms in order to attract foreign investment. The WEF's 2014 meeting in Davos, Switzerland will open Wednesday with a focus on political, economic, social and technological transformations. The forum's economic agenda highlights structural unemployment and widening income inequality as the main global economic risks. On Monday, ahead of the Davos meeting, Oxfam International published a report showing that governments end up serving the interests of an elite few due to pervasive inequality. The 85 richest individuals in the world own wealth equivalent to that of half of the world's population, the report stated. In the United States alone, the income share of the top 1 percent is now at its highest level since the eve of the Great Depression, a massive economic slump following the US stock market crash of 1929. Other results presented in the report show that the richest individuals and companies are the most capable of hiding their wealth in global tax havens. The WEF is a membership organisation comprising the top 1,000 corporations in the world, usually those with a turnover of $5 trillion and above. Source: Ahram Online
