On another level, the advent of the euro gives a great boost to the European economy, while in the States, many believe that they are living in the age of a new economy. And if you look at Asia, the business leaders from there who were in Davos think that the worst is over. So in some ways, you could call it a schizophrenic situation, but I would call it the beginning of what will be normal in the future. The first concerns the need for a new legal, procedural and institutional infrastructure for global business. That is the job of governments.
All corporations can do is to exert influence on their governments to act.
The meeting revealed a convergence of opinions, despite some clashes. All governments present here expressed the need for a fast rebuilding of our international financial architecture. The second issue concerns what companies themselves can do. This meeting may have been a kind of landmark in reintroducing the notion of social responsibility to the corporate sector. The crisis in countries like Indonesia where large parts of the middle class have disappeared, where children who had been in school are on the streets again, has forced companies to be more reflective.