WAIPA Annual Report 2011

WAIPA Report of Activities 2011-2012
The second panel discussion was
moderated by the experienced
GloboNews London Correspondent,
Silio Boccanera. Ricardo Haussman,
Harvard Professor of Economic
Development, placed the world
economic growth into perspective.
The speaker set the context by
commenting that, even with IMF
reductions of expected worldwide
growth [from 4.4% to 4%], it still
meant that “growth for this year
(2011) has gone from being at the
top 15% percentile of growth in the
last 50 years, to being in the top 30
percentile of the last 50 years”. In
other words, the professor made the
point that these rates still stand for
very fast growth. Here, he referred
to the consistently high prices of
commodities. A later comment by
Professor Haussman’s sent a good
signal for policy makers and – to
some extent – to IPAs: that “a country,
however, does not grow by producing
more of the same, but rather by
diversifying into more and more
complex things”. This comment is
related to the Conference overarching
theme, i.e., that governments may
now well need to consider shifting FDI
priorities in view of today’s “Changing
Macro-Economic Realities”. Professor
Haussman, former Minister of
Planning in Venezuela, added that,
in his view, “the argument that
countries must specialize was false”.
“People specialize, companies
specialize”, he said, but “countries
(however) diversify.”
This position was further backed
somehow by his fellow panellist
Wolfgang Lehmacher, partner at
Corporate Value Associates, when
he stated that West Europe needed
to diversify, drawing a comparison
between the Greek economy to the
WAIPA WIC11 Steering
Committee Meeting,
Sept 5, 2011