WAIPA Annual Report 2011

WAIPA World Investment
Conference 2011,
Geneva, Sep 5-6,
2011
neighbouring Turkish economy. In
his view, Turkey is a fast-growing
economy, outside the Euro area,
but with a much more diversified
economy than that of Greece’s.
Mr. Wolfgang added that “it is not a
global crisis we are living, but rather
a crisis of the West”. On a positive
note, however, the Executive seemed
to believe that the emergence of the
BRICs, the increasing demand of
their middle-classes, and the growing
investments made by TNCs/MNCs
based in Brazil, India and China into
established markets could, along
time, re-balance the global economy
and, as a side-effect, help create jobs
- by virtue of their investments into
the West. He finished by mentioning
that today India invests more in the
UK, than the UK invests in India.
Other panellists included BBC TV
Documentary Host Leo Johnson,
also co-founder of the Sustainable
Finance Ltd. Mr. Johnson, by his turn,
challenged the standard
growth-oriented views - and, as
a result, the mind-set for large
FDI projects attraction – with an
illustration of the scale effect (and
positive impact) that adding smaller
investment projects could lead to.
“In the light of sustainability”, he
pointed out, “the focus should shift
from consumption to production
and to skills-building”. First he
mentioned, as example, a school in
Paraguay that focused on building
entrepreneurship skills, with students
working on organic sugar cane along
with other 17 micro-businesses.
Then he complemented by citing the
rural poor population in India, which
did not have access to electricity,
but started gasifying discarded rice
husks and created mini-grids that
WAIPA Report of Activities 2011-2012
25