Delo Newspaper

By Jock Mendoza-Wilson

Out of two Ukrainian events in Davos organized by Pinchuk Foundation and EastOne I attended the lunch-conference Presidential elections: Quo Vadis, Ukraine?

The conference organized video linkups with candidates running for presidency in Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Timoshenko. Sergey Tigipko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk also answered questions of international and Ukrainian participants. I think the event went very well. Today Ukraine does not have many opportunities to present itself as a successful nation to the international community. This annual meeting makes a positive impact as it shows diversity of political views in Ukraine and also allows the Ukrainian businesses and politicians to meet their international partners.

As to the topic of the conference, I believe the people are concerned mostly about: will the Presidential elections lead to stability or more chaos? And in this context I’d say that whatever the elections result is, having a clear winner with a strong mandate is important.  Today Ukraine needs a president with authority and trust of voters. And it is desirable to win with excess of 5%; 7-9% would be excellent.  We’ll see on the 8th if this is possible.

Economic objectives at Davos

In fact, Davos does not decide anything. However, the “soft” power is here. Business leaders and politicians meet to develop the general vision and general direction of the global economy. What I heard from these world leaders this year is that we need simple and clear regulations on the global level, particularly for financial markets. This global regulatory system needs to be developed and approved to prevent a crisis similar to the recent one. Firstly, it should apply to the entire financial system to stop the emergence of speculative bubbles that led to the current crisis. This is the major topic which I have heard here this week , the overall topic which was on the agenda at every session, beginning with the speech of President Sarkozy in his opening address.

Another global objective set in Davos is that the business and governments must make certain decisions on how to address the challenge of climate change. It’s been said much about the need for all the nations to take action in this area, but nothing has been agreed so far. But people’s belief in moving in the right direction towards a global frame work which encourages the reduction in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions is extremely important for business and society.  Mexico will host the next major UN meeting on climate change (CoP 15) in 10 months time and business and government should work together to ensure that a legally binding framework which encourages Greenhouse gas reduction and  a low carbon future  agreed at this meeting

Demand for new capitalism

I’d point out Nicolas Sarkozy  as the star Davos speaker. He spoke very well, although I don’t agree with all of these statements. He spoke in particular about “a new capitalism”. The term means for me a capitalism which is responsible, and not driven by greed; responsible to shareholders and to broader society. The idea of global regulatory standards system is linked to this new capitalism as it will help rebuild trust in business. If you try to call out the nations staying closer than others to this model of responsible capitalism, I’d mention the Scandinavia countries, such as Denmark, Norway and Sweden as leaders in the area.

Jock Mendoza-Wilson, Director of International and Investor Relations, Chairman of the UN Global Compact network in Ukraine.