News on the World Economic Forum (WEF)

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has called for the release of the 136 hostages held by Hamas.

Addressing delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Herzog spoke of a baby boy, Kfir Bibas, who turned one year-old on Thursday while kidnapped by Hamas.

“Here, on this incredible world stage, I call on the entire universe to free Kfir Bibas and all the hostages that are there,” he said, sitting next to a photograph of the baby.

“Our world was shattered on [the] 7^th [of] October, we were celebrating a Jewish holiday … we were awakened into a huge shock,” Herzog said, describing Hamas’s attack against Israel last year.

— Lucy Handley

European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic said the organization must “adjust how we are supporting our businesses in Europe” by smoothening the process of granting permits, among other measures.

Asked how Europe will respond to competition from the U.S and China — the U.S. has invested billions of dollars into climate change technology and infrastructure, while China’s BYD has become the world’s top electric vehicle (EV) maker — Sefcovic said that the Commission is “ready to fight” for European businesses.

“We want you to prosper in Europe, because we have a lot to offer, we just have to be much faster, we have to be better at scaling up. And of course we have to do our utmost to make sure that sustainability, which is a trademark feature of European economies, will have a future here in Europe,” he told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The European government and national governments must provide a “one-stop shop” to support businesses financially, Sefcovic added.

— Lucy Handley

Belén Garijo, CEO of the multinational science and technology company Merck KGaA, says innovation is key to economic growth and prosperity and at this time “I believe Europe is lagging behind.”

Jason Bordoff, the founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, discusses how elections throughout the world in 2024 might affect climate policy and what needs to be done to speed up the energy transition.

Barclays CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan said he is “very optimistic” about the outlook for the U.K. economy, speaking to CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“I think the U.K. consumer is in very decent shape … These pent-up savings have been getting eroded. On the other hand, it’s a floating rate mortgage market, and a lot of the mortgage adjustment has happened, because the average term is about three years fixed and we’ve had about three years of rising rates,” he said.

The typical products on offer to U.K. consumers are two-year and five-year mortgages.

“Energy prices have calmed down. So the two things that have hit the pocket book are coming down, and I will say I’m very optimistic on the U.K.,” he added.

— Lucy Handley

The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has dominated public and private discussions at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Accuracy was a key topic for technology leaders, with Intel‘s CEO Patrick Gelsinger telling CNBC: “How do you prove that a large language model is actually right? There’s a lot of errors today. So you still need, you know, essentially, I’m improving the productivity of a knowledge worker. But, at the end of the day, I need the knowledge worker to say is it right.”

The best way to improve accuracy is through experimentation and co-piloting tests to advance adoption, said Clara Shih, CEO of Salesforce AI. 

“You can tell the AI to be conservative for higher stakes until a human co-pilot essentially graduates it to autopilot,” Shih said.

Read the full story here.

— Lucy Handley

Europe must be more assertive on the world stage, according to French President Emmanuel Macron who spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday.

“2024 will be a pivotal year for Europeans. We must prove that we can be more visible, make more efforts, whatever happens in the United States,” he said at the event, according to a translation.

Macron also voiced concern about what the outcome of the year-end presidential election could mean for existing tensions between the U.S. and China.

“The great risk for Europeans is that they would end up with the wrong agenda,” he said.

Read the full story here.

— Lucy Handley

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told CNBC that centrist political parties need to better articulate their position on key issues.

“I think the centrist parties, like my party, right of center, have to be more successful — me myself, my party — to explain we are there for the economy, we are there for collective safety,” he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

He added that this means “you need strong nation states but also strong multilateral organizations, and the more right-wing parties are successfully challenging particularly that multilateral world order.”

Mark Rutte has served as Netherlands’ prime minister since 2010. However, a general election in November saw Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom Party secure a decisive victory, with talks underway to form a new coalition government.

— Vicky McKeever