World Economic Forum: PM to leave for Davos tomorrow

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan will depart for  Switzerland tomorrow to attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

The prime minister will depart for ski resort town of Davos on a three day visit with the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He will address a special session on January 22 on the theme ‘Beyond Politics’ which will be streamed live and broadcast in several languages.

The Davos trip of Imran Khan is estimated as the most economical trip in the last 1o years. According to the Press Information Department (PID), the next month’s annual World Economic Forum (WEF) summit in Switzerland will cost $68,000, whereas the previous prime ministers doled out huge sums of money on their trips.

The expenditure of the three-day visit to Davos is being reduced from the national exchequer. The total expense cost public funds $762,199 during the tenure of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) when former prime minister Nawaz Sharif attended the summit in 2017. 

A delegation led former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi spent $561,381 separately, and $459,451 was spent during the tenure of Pakistan Peoples Party when former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani attend the summit in 2012.

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The PID statement has further stated that cutting down the expenditure was the prime minister’s orders. He has directed the authorities to further cut down expenses on his foreign trips.