Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman and former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres are among the keynote speakers at the 13th Mexico Business Summit taking place this week at Expo Guadalajara.
The non-profit, privately-led event started Sunday and welcomed Monday Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who was scheduled to speak at a plenary luncheon.
The summit describes itself as an independent platform that “brings together political and business leaders, along with thought and media personalities from Mexico and abroad to think the future of Mexico in a changing global context.”
The by-invitation-only event seeks to “connect Mexico with the global environment in which businesses have to operate and compete, and creating the context for a fruitful dialogue with Mexico’s economic partners.”
Krugman, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economic Science in 2008, spoke Sunday evening on “Mexico’s way out of the emerging markets ‘bad spot.’”
Krugman rejected the possibility that Mexico was in danger of a new economic crisis but emphasized that the reforms enacted by Peña Nieto at the start of his administration have so far not produced the anticipated growth many had hoped for.
Peres, aged 92, was scheduled to speak Tuesday on “The fight for peace in today’s world.” A two-time prime minister of Israel, Peres won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 and served as Israel’s president from 2007 to 2014.
More than 80 speakers and participants at the summit comprise top level business leaders, political personalities and academic experts from Mexico and abroad.
They include: Agustin Carstens, president of the Central Bank of Mexico; Mexican Secretary of Energy Pedro Joaquin Coldwell; Steve Greenlee, president of ExxonMobil Exploration Company; Alec Ross, Senior Fellow in International and Public Affairs Columbia University and former Senior Advisor for Innovation to U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton; Clyde Prestowitz, president of the Economic Strategy Institute; Eswar Prasad, Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development at the Brookings Institute; Pamela Starr, director of the US/Mexico Network at the University of Southern California; and William Duncan, Chargé d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.