My Davos: Peter Sutherland

After World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab, Peter Sutherland is the longest-serving member of the forum's foundation board and plays an active role in organising the annual Davos gathering.

Wearing his corporate hat, Sutherland is spending most of his time at Davos this year on duty for oil giant BP, of which he is chairman. He says Davos allows him to meet business and political leaders from the parts of the world where BP operates - Russia, China, India and the Middle East - in one location over a five-day period.

As former director general of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and group secretary of the World Trade Organisation, Sutherland takes more than a passing interest in the Doha round of world trade talks, which has stalled. Key trade leaders are meeting to discuss trade developments in Davos this week.

Though he admits the global financial crisis and economic uncertainty have overshadowed other issues at Davos this year, Sutherland feels the event needed a jolt. "Some people felt that, last year, the discussion was too general. It was not prompted by a specific crisis and maybe a crisis does have a dynamic effect in terms of the way people talk to each other."

This year, he says, many Davos participants are assessing what caused the financial crisis that has led to the current market volatility, but few predicted it at the forum last year. "It's a bit of retrospective vision for people to say we saw the subprime problem before it exploded. I never remember anyone saying anything about subprime last year and I was in the economic debates."

Sutherland says he believes the US economy is probably in recession but he doesn't see the European economy as being as negative. He expects the world economy to grow by between 3 and 4 per cent this year. "It is a very serious crisis but I don't think it's Apocalypse Now. We should be able to come out of this, unless we talk ourselves into an even deeper recession."

Ireland should also avoid talking itself down. He says that, although asset values might be falling, Ireland has a savings rate of 10 per cent, which is "up there with Germany".

Irish businesses have to bring their costs "seriously under control", he adds.

Sutherland believes that, despite the pressures businesses face, Ireland will weather the economic storm. "I don't think Ireland is suddenly going to fall back to the position that it occupied before our recent series of very successful years."