22 January 2004	Thursday	29 Ziqa'ad 1424

DAVOS, Jan 21: The annual World Economic Forum opened on Wednesday with more than 2,000 economic and political leaders gathering in the Swiss ski town.

Iraq and the weak dollar will likely be high on the agenda of public and private talks over the next five days at the heavily- guarded Alpine resort. Walter Kielholz, chairman of Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse Group, said he hoped the forum would help to solidify expectations of a global economic recovery.

"This meeting can add to make this optimism, which stands on fairly fragile grounds ... work," he told an opening news conference, with business chiefs from Japan's Nissan, Cisco Systems of the US and travel giant Carlos Companies.

As a result we will be able to "get out of this very depressing stage that we have had for the past four years," Mr Kielholz said. The forum provides a unique blend of faces from the political, business and academic world, said WEF founder and executive chairman, Klaus Schwab.

"If you go to the WTO you have trade people, if you go to the IMF you have finance people, if you go to the WHO you have ministers of health. Here you have really everybody," he told reporters.

Among the big guns expected to put in an appearance are US Vice-President Dick Cheney on Saturday and US overseer in Iraq Paul Bremer as well as several Iraqi ministers.

President Pervez Musharraf, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and president-elect of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili are due to show up. On the economic front, European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet, US Commerce Secretary Donald Evans and Japan's Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Heizo Takenaka are also due in town. The official theme of the forum is "Partnering for security and prosperity."-AFP