Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Britain’s former Premier Gordon Brown will take part in an Indian edition of World Economic Forum to be held at Gurgaon from November 6-8.
The meeting will start with a special address by Prime Minister Harper of Canada, one of India’s important partners from the G-8.
The first ever World Economic Forum on India will also see participation by a group of leaders from Pakistan, including Federal Minister Farzana Raja and former cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan.
Two leaders from Afghanistan, which will have elections in 2014, and one leader from Iraq are to attend the meeting, which will have a theme ‘From Deliberation to Transformation”.
The meet will bring together over 600 participants from over 40 countries, said Sushant Palakurthi Rao, Senior Director and Head of Asia, WEF.
Executives from companies such as Nestle, Infosys and Dangote Group will be co-chairs at the meeting, which will focus on country’s economic and social development.
WEF has moved away from its earlier well recognised format of holding India Economic Summits and decided to focus on issues beyond economy.
“WEF wanted to recognise the fact that India has a growing global role. The summit needs to be about India in the world and not (focusing) only on economy, but also on society, culture and development,” Rao said.
WEF also wants to give equal importance to the State-level, so four State Chief Ministers are to address the meeting this year, he said.
WEF will go solo in organising this year’s meeting even as Rao maintained that Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), which had co-hosted all the previous editions of India Economic Summits, remains an important partner.
The meeting will see participation from several Indian ministers including Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, Anand Sharma, Commerce and Industry Minister and Jyotiraditya Scindia, Minister of State for Power.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram are yet to confirm participation, according to Rao.
Rao also said that WEF will open an office in India next year and the actual location will be decided in January next year.