The Global Business Leaders Forum will be held on 22-23 November in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and will be opened by The Right Hon Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak, Prime Minister, Malaysia.

In the previous years, GBLF has taken place in Mumbai, Cape Town, Mauritius and Dubai and is a forum for high level networking between Commonwealth and International leaders from government and business. It has established a profile as an event which charts new strategies for global growth through the specific prism of the impact of emerging markets.

The 2010 theme is “Global Growth through Emerging Markets: Asia and the Commonwealth” and will focus on building new partnerships between Asia and the Commonwealth; track global growth driven by emerging markets; leading edge thinking on new business models and provide a high level platform for business to business networking. The world economy has moved from a bipolar (US/rest) to a multi polar environment in which the new dynamic is focused around more flexible and diverse economic partnerships. The important role now played by the G20 group of countries in the global economic management reflects this new global context. It will also highlight the role of new middle income countries as economic hubs.

The Forum will be global with strong delegations from Commonwealth countries each bringing a regional as well as national dimension to the Forum (e.g. Nigeria/West Africa, Rwanda/East Africa, South Africa/SADC, Trinidad/CARICOM, India/S Asia, Australia/NZ, Canada/N America and UK/EU.  Invitees from key non Commonwealth regions would include China, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and others.

The programme will focus on leading edge thinking about models in specific topics, not general business issues e.g.  risk management, finance. The Forum will address both trends in the global economy and in specific economic sectors.