Conference Overview

The Future of World Economy


The world economy is in dire straits: “The biggest crisis since the Great Depression” some say, “ The survival of the free market economy as it used to be is put into question”, “ We need a new Bretton Woods”, “ Today’s global financial system is dysfunctional” and “ How can we save the real economy” say others.

In the grip of the most significant global financial crisis in the last 70 years the world has run out of solutions. New thinking is necessary and new types of solutions are required.

Bankruptcies, nationalizations, bail-out programs, fiscal stimulus packages and so on are reactive measures. What should be done to ensure real, stable economic development?

What should central banks and governments do in the future? What is the impact of the crisis on the emerging developing countries?  How to get rid of the imbalances generated by the countries that run huge, persistent current account deficits and those that run huge, persistent surpluses?

What should be done to finance countries subject to “sudden stops” in capital inflows as we see now while many of these built huge foreign currency reserves to reduce vulnerability? How to make the financial system less unstable and less vulnerable to the huge swings in risk appetite? What should be done to make global institutions (IMF, World Bank etc.) less illegitimate than today?

And what is the impact on the Central and Eastern European countries, how did they cope with the crisis, what should they do to at least alleviate the effects of the recession?


All this and more will be discussed with high profile economists, governors of central banks, ministers of finance and commercial banks presidents from the area and European Union at the 6Th edition of the CSEE Financial Forum organized by Forum Invest with the support of the National Bank of Romania in Bucharest, the Parliament of Romania, and the Royal House of Romania, on May 18-22.