The annual meeting of world leaders, billionaires and senior businessmen in the Swiss alpine town of Davos will be postponed due to “health and safety concerns related to the Corona virus”, the World Economic Forum (WEF) announced today (Monday).
“The World Economic Forum will postpone its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in light of the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the Omicron outbreak,” the organization announced. “It is currently scheduled for early summer,” it read.
CNBC reports that the event was scheduled to take place between January 17 and January 21, with the aim of acting on “economic, environmental, political and social fault lines exacerbated by the plague.”
The organizers have announced that there will be an online series of “State of the World”, “to focus on designing solutions to the most pressing challenges in the world”.
The organization said the conditions of the corona plague made it very difficult to hold a face-to-face meeting next month, adding that the impact of the omicron on travel and mobility made the postponement necessary.
The annual event in Davos, considered a cornerstone of international relations, usually attracts prime ministers, businessmen and social activists to discuss the world’s most burning issues.
Earlier this year the World Economic Forum canceled a conference that was scheduled to take place in Singapore in August, and earlier this year a virtual conference was held in place of the traditional conference in Davos.