COOPERATION BRINGS OPTIMISM

Attendees at the forum said cooperation would be for global growth. WEF President Borge Brende expressed confidence that "we can shape a more resilient, sustainable and equitable future," but "the only way to do it is together."

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for urgent action on several interconnected challenges, including the global economic crisis and climate. He underlined the need to "forge the pathways to cooperation in our fragmented world."

Leslie Maasdorp, vice president and chief financial officer of the New Development Bank, told Xinhua, "Without multilateral cooperation, you cannot really deal with challenges that are cross-national ... I believe that the one positive lesson we can learn from COVID is that we are interconnected."

Though challenges still threaten the global economy, attendees voiced hope that a severe recession may be avoided.

"We are now heading to a year where hopefully the corporates, the consumers, the state, policymakers will continue to have that resilient, determined approach to engineer the transitions that must take place," Lagarde said.

"The situation around the world must be improving a little bit," said Lagarde. "Players are moving from defense mode, that they had effectively been in 2021 and 2022, towards a more competitive mode."

In his closing remarks on Friday, Brende said despite the many complex issues facing the global community, progress had been made at the annual meeting, especially in tackling the most urgent crises of food, energy and climate.

"For me, the greatest lesson of the week has been that although the world is more fragmented today, it does not need to be tomorrow," Brende said.