Beverly Hills, CA – The much-awaited Milken Institute Global Conference featuring the who’s who of the banking and finance sector started with Mohamed El-Erian, Chief Economic Advisor for Allianz, shedding doubts over the future of the world economy, citing it as more uncertain now than ever.
El-Erian said, “The growth model of the advanced world is getting exhausted, and the emerging world’s is getting contaminated.”
Echoing his sentiments, Jay Hooley, Chairman and CEO of State Street Corporation argued, “we are almost at the end of the road in terms of tools that central banks have.”
With interest rates hovering near zero in the US and many other first world countries still in negative figures, the panelists agreed the emerging world needed to do the needful to pull the global economy out of the dooms of despair.
The new efforts by China to shift its export driven economy to a domestic consumption based system got special mention by El-Erian, who wondered if China would be able to implement reforms that devolve power and resources from exporters and hand them off to consumers.
David Harding, CEO of Winton Capital Management, agreed with Hooley expressing skepticism over the figures and finances in general.
The 19th annual Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills started with more than 3,500 people from 55 nations and 45 states expected to attend the conference, which features major investors, CEOs, senior government officials, scientists, educators and philanthropists participating in 200 sessions with the overarching theme exploring “The Future of Humankind.” The conference continues through Wednesday.