As countries around the world recover from the crisis, unanswered questions about the necessary restructuring of the global economy require urgent attention, four leaders from business, academia and civil society said on the opening day of the World Economic Forum’s Summit on the Global Agenda.

“We’ve got a window of opportunity,” Sharan Burrow, President of the International Trade Union Confederation, told reporters in a press conference.
“The crisis has focused the minds of governments, particularly the G20, on what you need to do to rebalance globalization. It means rebuilding economies, balancing exports with domestic demand and investing in jobs, jobs and jobs. You must combine that with social protection.” Burrow called for investments to focus on generating green growth and helping the poorest people in the world.

The quality of the rebound has been patchy, Howard Davies, Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, remarked.
“We have so far seen rather weak recovery where there has been one,” he observed. “We have still not solved the global imbalance problem that was behind the recession.”

Countries will have to manage exit strategies from the large fiscal stimuli they implemented to counter the crisis, Davies said. While the private sector has borne the brunt of the pain so far, the public sector will eventually be hit, particularly when government spending is curtailed, he cautioned.

The economic recovery in Asia is stronger than it is in the US and EU, Davies noted. Laura M. Cha, Deputy Chairman of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, agreed.