Egypt, represented by a central bank official, will be taking part in the 46th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) kicks off in Davos, Swtizerland running from 20-23 January 2016. Dr. Rania Al-Mashat - Sub-Governor for Monetary Policy at the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), will participate in Davos meetings this year's event. Business leaders and prominent figures from the political, civil, media and religious world will meet to discuss the challenges posed by the "Fourth Industrial Revolution". Credit Suisse chief executive Tidjane Thiam, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, General Motors chief Mary Barra and Hitachi chairman and CEO Hiroaki Nakanishi are among the meeting co-chairs. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, neither of whom will be among the participants. Moscow will be represented by Yury Trutnev, a deputy prime minister and the Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Far East. Much like Putin, US President Barack Obama will not be attending the meeting, yet John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, will represent Washington in Davos alongside a host of other politicians including the US Trade Representative, Michael Froman. Furthermore, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron and the Chancellor George Osborne will be heading to Davos. The intergovernmental organisation will itself be represented by secretary general Ban Ki-moon and his predecessor, Kofi Annan. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his French counterpart Manuel Valls will also be among the participants, along with newly-elected Argentinian President Mauricio Macri, Ukranian President Petro Poroshenko and Li Yuanchao, the Vice President of the People's Republic of China. The Middle East will, as usual, be one of the main focuses of the meeting, Iraq's Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi and Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, the current president of Afghanistan will be in attendance. Federal Reserve's Chairwoman Janet Yellen will not travel to Switzerland, although a number of policymakers from the major central banks are expected to take part in the proceedings. Bank of England's Governor Mark Carney, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and Bank of Japan's governor Haruhiko Kuroda will attend the meeting, alongside International Monetary Fund's managing director Christine Lagarde. Lagarde plans to meet with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras next week to discuss the nation's bailout package, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. Away from the political world, Davos will see a number of high-profile figures from the corporate world, including John McFarlane and Jes Staley, the chairman and chief executive of Barclays, and Lloyds' CEO Antonio Horta-Osorio. WPP's CEO Sir Martin Sorrell, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co James Dimon, and BP's CEO Robert Dudley are also all expected to participate. In 2015, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, headed a delegation of economic-group ministers, delivered a speech in Davos asserted the government's plans to fix the nation's economy and prove an attractive destination for foreign investment.
