OREANDA-NEWS. May 16, 2011. IBC Executive Director participated in the IV Astana Economic Forum, which took place at the Palace of Independence in the Kazakhstan’s capital Astana. More than 3,000 people from nearly 70 countries took part in the forum. Among the main speakers of the Forum there were seven Nobel Laureates, former and current heads of state, as well as academicians, central banks governors, representatives of business elite and other famous personalities, reported the press-centre of IBC.

The Astana Economic Forum has been held annually since 2008. Astana Economic Forum is an international dialogue platform for the development of mechanisms for global financial system, business development promotion, integration process, international cooperation, innovation application and investment attraction.

The IV Astana Economic Forum was formed on the theme “Global challenges and prospects of development: ways to mutual progress” and helped identify new ways to develop and renew the world’s economy. The Forum program included 15 events focusing on three major areas: global economy and finance, business and investment, and society and stable development.

Among the participants of the IV Astana Economic Forum there were prominent political figures, famous scientists, Nobel laureates, representatives of major international corporations, financial institutions, as well as representatives of the real economy.

Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev opened the plenary session of the forum saying that in a globalised world events occurring in one country necessarily affect other states, as we are all interconnected.

“Today’s forum is one of the recognized grounds for searching solutions for such issues. I would like to share with you my vision of the lessons of the current crisis, the challenges of the future, and the prospects of a new decade,” Nazarbayev said.

Nazarbayev noted that the world needs a comprehensive and objective analysis of lessons learnt from the current crisis. According to him, the main lesson is inadmissibility of imbalances in economic policy.

“Open capital market, coupled with unregulated financial sector, is a ticking time bomb. It had already exploded all over the world once and may explode again,” he said.

“Challenges of the financial sector lie in defectiveness of the global financial system and its core composite—the world’s reserve currency... To correct this deficiency, drastic measures that have not yet had a precedent must be used,” the President said.

“Ultimately, all economies of the world will come to the necessity of creating and introducing a supranational settlement payment unit and, then, a global currency of a fundamentally new class. I mentioned this a year ago at the Third Astana Economic Forum,” Nazarbayev added.

Among the participants of the IV Astana Economic Forum there were prominent political figures, famous scientists, Nobel laureates, representatives of major international corporations, financial institutions, as well as representatives of the real economy.

One of the significant events of the forum was the session “International Monetary System: New Configuration of Economic and Monetary Power”, conducted by the Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee and Nobel laureate Robert Mundell. The purpose of this session was to discuss changes and improvements in financial and monetary system, and among the speakers there were experts from Kazakhstan, U.S.A., European Union, China, Japan, Russia, Brazil, and other countries.

Within the frameworks of the Forum was held a session on economic peculiarities of tourism in the modern world. The purpose of this event was to increase the competitiveness of the tourism industry through the mutually beneficial cooperation between the public and private sectors, investment cooperation in the field of tourism, exchange of experience of international cooperation, realization of international projects in tourism, as well as to ensure stable growth of the income of state and population.

Today the main issue for the Central Asian countries is food security. Aggravation of the world food problem in the XXI century is mainly caused by higher population growth compared with growth rates of production, as well as global climate change. Within the frameworks of the IV Astana Economic Forum was held a panel session on “Ensuring Food Security in Central Asia”.

The JSC “National Welfare Fund “Samruk-Kazyna” organized a roundtable discussion on the state regulation in the sector of the economy and modernization of the quasi-public sector for the development of country’s economic potential.

The Innovation Congress Program included the plenary session, which discussed inter-state policies, the integration processes and mechanisms of international innovation cooperation. With this objective, the authoritative international organizations and institutions in the field of public policy, economics and innovation are involved into the formation of Congress information content. The Congress brouhgt together the key players of the national innovation system: technoparks, business incubators and business structures in development and introduction of innovative technologies, as well as the developers of the government policy on innovative inter-state cooperation.