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The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting – more commonly known as Davos – takes place in January, with business and world leaders gathering this year for discussions on the 2023 theme of “cooperation in a fragmented world”.

Here’s everything you need to know.

What is Davos?

Davos is the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Meeting is underselling it slightly – with thousands of attendees in a town that’s invite-only for the duration of the sessions, it’s more cult festival than Zoom catch-up.

The super-size conference includes hundreds of discussions, speeches and panels, plus all-important networking that goes into the night.

According to the WEF website, Davos will “provide a platform to engage in constructive, forward-looking dialogues and help find solutions through public-private cooperation”.

How did it get its name?

Davos, the meeting, is named after Davos, the place – perched in the eastern Alps in Switzerland, it’s Europe’s highest town, home to just under 11,000 people and one of the country’s largest ski resorts.

Once a year in January, the Alpine resort becomes invite-only only, as thousands descend to network and discuss global political and economic challenges.

When is Davos 2023 happening?

This year’s meeting will take place between 16 to 20 January.

Davos 2023 will be a return to the traditional January event, after the meeting was pushed to May in 2022 and held online in 2021.

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A general view shows the Swiss mountain resort of Davos
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The Swizz ski resort of Davos is taken over each January for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting

What will be discussed this year?

This year’s theme is “cooperation in a fragmented world” and within that are five sub-themes, including the energy and food crises, inflation, technology for innovation, social vulnerabilities and geopolitical risks.

Who will be there?

The invite list includes world leaders, business leaders, young leaders – you get the theme.

According to the WEF’s website, the heads of its 1000 partner companies are invited, alongside public figures, chiefs of international organisations, society leaders, academics and “top thinkers”, making it an invitation list of more than 2,700 people.

Men make up the bulk of Davos attendees – in recent years, women have accounted for about a quarter of the guestlist, WEF said.

What has happened at previous Davos forums?

This year is the 52nd Davos and the 50th to be held in the Swiss town, after the 2021 event moved online and the 2002 meeting was held in New York in a show of solidarity after the 9/11 attacks.

Last year, Ukraine was high on the agenda as Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave a virtual address.

In 2019, Greta Thunberg urged world leaders to act on climate change, telling them “Our house is on fire”. She was on stage again a year later, berating the leaders for doing “basically nothing” to reduce carbon emissions, clashing with Donald Trump.

In 1992, Nelson Mandela and South African president FW de Klerk met at Davos, their first joint appearance outside South Africa and a milestone in the country’s political transition.

Greece and Turkey signed the Davos Declaration in 1988, which saw them turn back from the brink of war, while in 1989, North and South Korea held their first ministerial-level meetings in Davos.

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Business

Vodafone and Three merger could get green light, says UK’s competition watchdog

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Vodafone and Three merger could get green light, says UK's competition watchdog

A £15bn merger between two of the UK’s biggest mobile networks could get the green light – if they stick to their commitments to invest in the country’s infrastructure, the competition watchdog has said.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said the merger of Vodafone and Three had “the potential to be pro-competitive for the UK mobile sector”.

Announced last year, the proposed £15bn merger would bring 27 million customers together under a single provider.

The watchdog previously warned that tens of millions of mobile phone users could end up paying more if the merger went ahead.

However, the two groups recently set out plans to protect consumer pricing and boost network investment.

The CMA has now laid out a list of “remedies” required for the deal to go-ahead.

They include the networks committing to freezing certain tariffs and data plans for at least three years to protect customers from short-term price rises in the early years of the network plan.

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From September: ‘A transformation for the UK’

Stuart McIntosh, chair of the inquiry group leading the investigation, said on Tuesday: “We believe this deal has the potential to be pro-competitive for the UK mobile sector if our concerns are addressed.

“Our provisional view is that binding commitments combined with short-term protections for consumers and wholesale providers would address our concerns while preserving the benefits of this merger.

“A legally binding network commitment would boost competition in the longer term and the additional measures would protect consumers and wholesale customers while the network upgrades are being rolled out.”

Today’s announcement is provisional, with a final decision due before 7 December. The inquiry group is inviting feedback on today’s announcement by 5pm on 12 November.

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The CMA also published a list of potential solutions – which it called remedies – to issues it identified with the merger.

If the networks want the merger to go ahead, the watchdog requires Vodafone and Three to:

• Deliver a joint network plan to set out network upgrades and improvements over eight years;

• Commit to keeping certain existing tariff costs and data plans for at least three years to protect customers from price hikes;

• Commit to pre-agreed prices and contract terms so Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) – mobile providers that do not own the networks they operate on – can obtain competitive wholesale deals.

Vodafone and Three are two of the biggest mobile firms in the UK, and their networks support a number of MVNOs including Asda Mobile, Lebara, Voxi, and Smarty.

Responding to the watchdog’s announcement, a spokesperson for Vodafone on behalf of the merger said: “The merger will be a catalyst for positive change.

“It will bring significant benefits to businesses and consumers throughout the UK, and it will bring advanced 5G to every school and hospital across the country.

“The merger is also closely aligned with the government’s mission to drive growth and to encourage more private investment in the UK.”

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Earlier this year, Three’s chief executive hit out at the UK’s “abysmal” 5G speeds and availability as he urged regulators to approve the company’s merger with Vodafone.

Robert Finnegan noted his firm’s “cash flows have been negative since 2020 and our costs have almost doubled in five years, meaning investment in [the] network is unsustainable”.

“UK mobile networks rank an abysmal 22nd out of 25 in Europe on 5G speeds and availability, with the dysfunctional structure of the market denying us the ability to invest sustainably to fix this situation,” he added.

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Business

Bosses rail at business secretary over ‘avalanche of costs’

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Bosses rail at business secretary over 'avalanche of costs'

Business leaders expressed frustration with ministers on Monday amid a growing budget backlash that bosses said would trigger an “avalanche of costs” and leave them with no choice but to slash investment and increase prices.

Sky News has learnt that bosses of large retail and hospitality companies and trade associations told Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, that last week’s budget risked damaging consumer confidence and exacerbating challenges facing the UK economy.

Among the dozens of companies represented on the call are said to have been Burger King UK, Fuller Smith & Turner, Greene King, Kingfisher and the supermarket chain Morrisons.

Mr Reynolds is said to have acknowledged that Rachel Reeves‘s inaugural fiscal statement had “asked a lot” of British business, with James Murray, the financial secretary to the Treasury, understood to have described it as “a once-in-a-generation budget”, according to several people briefed on the call.

Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds arrives in Downing Street.
Pic: PA
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Jonathan Reynolds. Pic: PA

One insider said that Nick Mackenzie, the chief executive of Greene King, had highlighted that the increase in employers’ national insurance (NI) contributions would cause “a £20m shock” to the company, while Fullers is understood to have warned that it would be forced to halve annual investment from £60m to £30m as a result of increased cost pressures.

Rami Baitieh, the Morrisons chief executive, told Mr Reynolds that the budget had exacerbated “an avalanche of costs” for businesses next year, and asked what the government could do to mitigate them.

Sources added that the CBI, the employers’ group, said its impact would be “severe”, while the British Beer & Pub Association added that there was now a disincentive to invest and flagged “a tsunami” of higher costs.

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How will the budget affect businesses?

The range of comments on the call with ministers underlines the scale of discontent in the private sector about Labour’s first budget for nearly 15 years.

Only a small number of interventions during the discussion are said to have been in support of measures announced last week, with the Federation of Small Businesses understood to have praised the doubling of the employment allowance, which would see many of the smallest employers having their NI bills cut by £2,000.

The Department for Business and Trade has been contacted for comment, while none of the companies contacted by Sky News would comment.

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Business

Retail giants face food price hikes dilemma after budget

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Retail giants face food price hikes dilemma after budget

Two of Britain’s biggest food retailers will this week face pressure to publicly disclose whether they expect a fresh spike in prices next year as the industry grapples with huge tax hikes imposed in last week’s budget.

Sky News understands that Marks & Spencer (M&S), which will unveil half-year earnings on Wednesday, and J Sainsbury, which reports interim results the following day, are collectively facing an additional bill of close to £200m as a result of changes to employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs) announced by Rachel Reeves, the chancellor.

Industry sources said the pressure on pricing would be “intense” given the thin margins on which the big supermarkets already operate.

“Food price increases from next April are inevitable,” said one.

The warning comes a day after Ms Reeves told Sky News that “businesses will now have to make a choice, whether they will absorb that through efficiency and productivity gains, whether it will be through lower profits or perhaps through lower wage growth”.

Pointedly, she did not highlight the prospect of higher prices at the tills, with some retailers now weighing whether to explicitly blame the government for impending price increases – a move which will trigger renewed inflation in the UK economy.

The grocery industry is expected to be among the hardest-hit by the changes to employer NICs, particularly after the chancellor slashed the threshold at which businesses become liable for it to just £5,000.

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Tens of thousands of people employed part-time in the sector earn between that sum and the current threshold of £9,100.

The first major retailer to report financial results since the budget will be Primark’s parent, Associated British Foods (ABF), on Tuesday.

Insiders downplayed the risks of price hikes from Primark given its track record of absorbing inflationary pressures without passing them on to consumers.

ABF’s additional employer NICs bill is expected to be in the region of £25m, according to one analyst.

Overall, the retail sector could end up paying billions of pounds of additional tax given the scale of its workforce.

Ms Reeves has vowed to raise £25bn extra annually from the changes to employer NICs.

In addition to that, the rise in the national living wage will add a further burden to the financial pressures facing the retail industry.

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Prior to the budget, Stuart Machin, the M&S chief executive, urged the chancellor not to increase taxes on it, calling them “a short-term, easy fix”.

“When I hear about plans to increase national insurance, a tax with no link to profit which hits bigger employers like us and our smaller suppliers, I’m concerned.

“The chancellor was right in the past to call national insurance a tax on workers.”

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Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, will hold talks with British business leaders later on Monday about the impact of the budget.

A number of executives will be given the opportunity to ask questions on a call in which more than 100 companies are expected to be represented, although one boss who is critical of many of the budget measures said they were likely to be prevented from voicing their concerns publicly on the call.

ABF, M&S and Sainsbury’s all declined to comment.

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