That’s all for tonight, from a rather cold and snowy Davos. See you in the morning for full coverage of Day 1. GW

Here’s the key message from Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan’s speech to WEF tonight, as he collected his Crystal Award.

“To disfigure a woman by throwing acid on her face is one of the crudest acts of subjugation imaginable. At the source of it lies the view that a woman does not have the right to assert her choice,.

We need to open access for each and every one with a true sense of ourselves, not as more powerful or less privileged but as equals.”

Rukh Khan’s non-profit Meer Foundation provides support to female victims of acid attacks and major burn injuries through medical treatment and legal aid.

The dancing is over, and I’ve hotfooted it across from the Congress Centre to hear from Global Himalayan Expedition, an Indian social enterprise.

GHE have a good story to tell too - they’ve using solar panels and ‘decentralized microgrids’ to bring power to remote communities in India.

We’re watching a video now, about how a village who relied on kerosene lamps now have modern LED lighting.

GHE’s Jaideep Bansal, who is one of WEF’s ‘global shapers’, explains that the children in the village used to trek three miles to school. Now they have an internet connection -- no sooner were they online then they were checking out their own region on Wikipedia. Inspiring stuff. More details here.

Elton John’s attack on inequality will, rightly, provoke reminders that he is himself fabulously wealthy - with an estimated £290m in the bank.

But that’s what happens when you shift a quarter of a billion records over a glittering career. And in his defence, the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF) has raised more than $400 million (according to WEF).

From inequality to...ballet!

WEF delegates are now enjoying a performance led by La Scala’s principal dancer étoile Roberto Bolle, which I’m told “fuses the work of Antonio Vivaldi and Astor Piazzolla to explore the fine line between chaos and harmony in our relationship with nature.”

Now, Bollywood star Shar Rukr Khan gives a moving speech about the strength of women, such as those who have suffered acid attacks, and children who are overcoming suffering.

Collecting her WEF crystal award, Cate Blanchett tells the audience that we must rebuild the ‘shared bonds’ between people if we are to tackle the refugee crisis.

The Australian actor laments the lack of empathy and compassion. She explains that if we can drop the ‘loaded label’ of the word ‘refugee’ it is earlier to see the person behind it.

It is “very very easy” to turn your back on those in need, if you don’t think of them as fellow human being, Blanchett says, adding:

Once you’ve born witness you cannot turn away.

Klaus Schwab welcomes delegates to the 48th World Economic Forum.

He calls WEF the “foremost multi-stakeholder group in the world”.

This year’s delegates include politicians, business leaders, the heads of international organisations, charities and trade unions, plus the new generation of young global leaders.

The point behind WEF is is that governments, businesses and civil society cannot solve the world’s problems alone.

He reminds us that WEF’s ambition is to “Improve the state of the world”, and urges delegates to follow three rules:

• respect human dignity and diversity
  
• serve the community
  
• be a trustee of the next generation
  

In a disappointing development, global flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) fell by 16% in 2017.

That’s according to a new report from UNCTAD - the United Nation’s arm for trade, investment and development issues.

UNCTAD reports that FDI shank to $1.52 trillion last year, down from $1.81 trillion in 2016. That indicates that companies cut back on spending on new factories and the like.

FDI flows into Europe shrank by 27%, while in US it slumped by a third.

UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi says FDI spending is on a “bumpy road”, adding:

“While FDI in developing countries remained at a level similar to the previous year, more investment in sectors that can contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals is still badly needed.

Promoting FDI for sustainable development remains a challenge.”

The Treasury have sent a short response to today’s IMF forecasts:

“We are building a Britain that is fit for the future by improving skills, backing innovation and investing in infrastructure to deliver a stronger economy and guarantee a better future for the next generation.”

Here’s some reaction to the latest IMF forecasts:

Outside the IMF’s press conference, the weather at Davos is decidedly wintery.

Delegates are stepping off the train into a flurry of monster snowflakes, there are huge snowdrifts everywhere, and the roads are jammed in all directions.

As usual, the whole resort has been taken over by the WEF circus, with security guards controlling the traffic and guards on the perimeter of the Congress Hall.

On that note, I’ll hand over to Graeme Wearden in Davos.

Here is a link to the opening remarks by Maurice Obstfeld, the IMF’s economic counsellor, at the World Economic Outlook press conference:

Final question: will China continue to play a bigger role [in the global economy]?

Obstfeld: There is no question China is a major player. Chinese growth is incredibly important to world growth. It is important for China to support the multilateral system. It will require further steps from China, to open its own economy to imports and work on a range of issues. China’s role is critical.

Question on whether growth is even a worthwhile pursuit if not everyone benefits.

Obstfeld says GDP doesn’t measure the distribution of rewards [from growth]. You could do that but it would be a value judgement, and economists have struggled with this for centuries. How do you measure overall utility?

You have to keep GDP as an anchor and where it does not get at all the social or welfare issues you want, you have to supplement it with other data.

It will never be possible to have one number to summarise the totality of the happiness of people in the worlkd, but GDP is a key concept and we’ll keep looking at it.

Do you expect US growth to become a drag on global growth after 2020?

Obstfeld: The tax bill and its impact is complex, lot of uncertainty around our forecast. A lot of the impact is explicitly temporary. Could be a surge of investment in near term, when it stops could be some payback. But some [of the measures] are not temporary.

So some potential for payback in US growth [could] result in slower import growth in the US which would affect trading partners. How big those effect would be is hard to predict.

What role does China play now compared to ten years ago? How about the Federal Reserve?

Obstfeld: China carried out large fiscal stimulus at time of crisis. Even though its growth rate has come down, it is still a major source of growth. there are challenges which the leadership has recognised in terms of strengthening financial regulations... the relationship between local and federal budgets. We see China as a strong driver of global growth going forward.

As for the Fed we expect them to make data dependent decisions to achieve full employment and stable prices.

Question on the risks facing the global economy.

Obstfeld says, It is hard to identify one risk, policymakers need to think broadly and for the long term, not just the next political cycle.

The current upturn was not by chance, says Obstfeld, it owed much to accommodative macro economic polices.

Our view is the current upturn is not likely to be a new normal.

Advanced economies are leading the upswing, but will return to growth rates below pre-crisis levels. Demographic change and low productivity present challenges.

The two biggest national economies driving growth, China and the US, are predicted to see lower growth in future.

Easy financial conditions have also left a legacy of debt.

There is less good news in Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa (in terms of growth).

Voters in many countries have soured on political entities, with a turn to more nationalistic tendencies and this would harm longer term growth prospects.

The overarching risk at the moment is complacency.

Maurice Obstfeld, the IMF’s economic counsellor, says countries have to ask themselves three questions: how can we raise our economic efficiencies over the long term; how can we avoid this upturn ending in new slowdown; and how can we be sure we have the tools to counter the next downturn.

The IMF is holding a press conference on the world economic outlook which can be viewed here.

The view from the train on the way to the World Economic Forum in Davos, as seen by Graeme Wearden and Larry Elliott:

Still with Greece, and ahead of the eurogroup meeting, the country’s officials are expressing confidence that a new loan disbursement of up to €6.7bn will be granted. Helena Smith reports from Athens:

Greek officials are calling today’s eurogroup the beginning of the end of Greece’s nine-year ordeal under international supervision. Even though some demanded reforms are still pending, insiders are not anticipating especially tough words from euro area finance ministers when they meet under Mario Centeno for the first time this afternoon.

“I am 99 per cent sure they are going to give us the green light for the next [bailout] instalment,” MEP Stelios Koulouglou told the Guardian. “We are expecting soft stuff.”

Koulouglou, who represents the governing leftwing Syriza party in the European parliament, said disbursement would not only conclude the debt-stricken country’s third compliance review but pave the way to the end of international supervision under its €86bn third bailout programme. “After this there is a fourth, and last, review but it won’t be at all as gruelling and then we will be at the end.”

Briefing reporters at 2 PM local time, the government spokesman, Dimitris Tzannakopoulos, said after today’s euro group Athens would enter “the last stretch” before officially exiting the programme in August.

The government expected the bailout tranche to be €6.7bn “on the recommendation of the euro working group” which advises eurozone finance ministers.

“Of that amount €5.7bn will be given [to Greece] by mid-February upon completion of technical prior actions [reforms] without a new meeting of the eurogroup,” he said.

There was good news for Greece and Spain from a couple of ratings agencies late on Friday, giving a lift to their bond prices today. Reuters reports:

Spain’s borrowing costs fell to six-week lows and short-dated bond yields in Greece tumbled on Monday, after ratings upgrades for the two southern euro zone states provided further evidence of a turnaround for the bloc’s peripheral economies.

Fitch upgraded Spain’s credit rating to “A-” with a stable outlook late on Friday, citing a broad-based economic recovery and limited impact on the economy from Catalonia’s independence bid. It was Spain’s first “A” rating from one of the top three ratings agencies since the euro zone debt crisis.

S&P Global Ratings, releasing its review on Greece after Friday’s market close, lifted Greek long-term, foreign currency ratings for the first time in two years on improvements in the finances and fiscal outlook for the debt-laden nation .

“The fact that it is the first ratings upgrade in two years is a political win for government and the euro zone,” said Patrick O‘Donnell, an investment manager at Aberdeen Asset Management in London, referring to the Greek upgrade.

The US government shutdown may be having little impact so far on global equity markets, but it has pushed the already weak dollar even lower. Connor Campbell, financial analyst at Spreadex, said:

Sterling heavily flirted with $1.39 as it climbed 0.2%, while the euro crept back across $1.225 after rising by the same amount. Against each other, however, neither currency could gain the upper hand, with the pound effectively flat the wrong side of €1.134.

Despite cable lurking around its post-Brexit peak, the FTSE managed to overcome its initial wobble this Monday, nudging back above 7730 – roughly 70 points off its all-time highs – as the day went on. The DAX, meanwhile, remained in the ball-park of its own record intraday high, sitting flat around 30 or so points away from 13500 – the latest news surrounding a possible German coalition between the CDU and SPD could only keep the index from dipping in the red, rather than propel it to fresh highs.

Greece is edging closer to an exit from its bailout programme:

Time for a market update.

The FTSE 100 has recovered some of its poise after its early dip, and is now up around 0.07%.

Germany’s Dax is virtually unchanged, while France’s Cac has slipped by a marginal 0.04%. David Madden, market analyst at CMC Markets UK, said:

Stock markets in Europe are a mixed bag this morning as investors access the political landscape. The shutdown of the US government hasn’t spooked investors as there was a similar muted reaction the last time it happened in 2013, but nor has it given traders a reason to buy into the market. In Germany the SPD have agreed to begin formal talks with Angela Merkel’s CDU. This is a step in the right direction for German politics and traders will be watching it closely.

We’ve seen a number of companies jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon (step forward Long Island Iced Tea) and seeing their shares soar. And it hasn’t peaked yet, it seems:

A rather downbeat survey on UK household finances from IHS Markit:

You would imagine stock markets would be rather edgy at the prospect of a US government shutdown. But apparently not. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 53 points on Friday, and the futures are indicating a small decline at today’s open of around 44 points. And the long term impact on US markets seems limited:

A new report on the growing gap between rich and poor is timely in the run up to the Davos meeting. Larry Elliott writes:

The development charity Oxfam has called for action to tackle the growing gap between rich and poor as it launched a new report showing that 42 people hold as much wealth as the 3.7 billion who make up the poorest half of the world’s population.

In a report published on Monday to coincide with the gathering of some of the world’s richest people at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Oxfam said billionaires had been created at a record rate of one every two days over the past 12 months, at a time when the bottom 50% of the world’s population had seen no increase in wealth. It added that 82% of the global wealth generated in 2017 went to the most wealthy 1%.

The charity said it was “unacceptable and unsustainable” for a tiny minority to accumulate so much wealth while hundreds of millions of people struggled on poverty pay. It called on world leaders to turn rhetoric about inequality into policies to tackle tax evasion and boost the pay of workers.

Our full report is here:

And here’s Larry’s reality check ahead of the meeting:

And finally, a rundown of the hot topics in the chilly Alps:

Ahead of the latest World Economic Outlook, Lord Jim O’Neill - the former Conservative treasury minister and remain supporter - is optimistic about the outlook for the UK.

In an interview with BBC economics editor Kamal Ahmed, Lord O’Neill said the UK was benefiting from better than expected global growth, and forecasts are likely to be upgraded, dwarfing the more gloomy predictions about the effects of Brexit.

But O’Neill, who is on the board of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said the question was, how much better would Britain be doing without the uncertainty of its future relationship with the EU. He said:

I certainly wouldn’t have thought the UK economy would be as robust as it currently seems. That is because some parts of the country, led by the North West [of England], are actually doing way better than people seem to realise or appreciate.

As well as this crucial fact, the rest of the world is also doing way better than many people would have thought a year ago, so it makes it easier for the UK.

A recent assessment suggested growth in the UK could be on average 3% lower by 2030 than it would have been if Britain remained in the single market and customs union. O’Neill said:

If that’s the worst that Brexit will deliver, then I wouldn’t worry about it. Now, my own view is if we go for a really hard Brexit or a no-deal Brexit, we’ll probably suffer more than that 3%.

But if it is only 3%, what’s going on with the rest of the world - helping us - and with productivity improving, that will easily dwarf a 3% hit over 13 years, easily.

He admitted the stronger performance could mean he and many economist had been too pessimistic about the effects of the Brexit vote:

I’m almost embarrassed to accept that it might sound like that. Because of course in principle I share the views of many that Brexit is a really weird thing for the UK to impose on itself from an economic perspective.

And maybe this [better global growth] means the country’s going to be able to cope with Brexit better than certainly somebody like me might have thought some time ago.

But I would quickly add at the same time, I have felt for a good couple of years, as important as Brexit is, it isn’t the most important thing facing Britain’s future.

Brexiteers are going to be like the cat with the cream. They’re like ‘there you go, told you so’, which of course is ridiculous.

He said major sectors of the economy closely linked to the EU, such as car manufacturing and pharmaceuticals, were still facing significant threats if the UK does leave the customs union and the single market.

More on the German coalition talks. Here’s ING economist Carsten Brzeski:

Given the very detailed informative talks in January, the official coalition talks should not take too long - if all parties stick to the desired results. However, the SPD delegate pushed the party leaders to renegotiate details of the informative talks regarding the healthcare system, the labour market and immigration, increasing pressure on the SPD to bring some new political achievements from the forthcoming talks. The willingness of the CDU to really re-open some of the most controversial issues seems to be very limited.

... However, once there is an official coalition agreement, all SPD party members, more than 440,000, will get the chance to vote for or against it. Compared with today’s party congress, this party members’ vote will be a much tougher nut to crack.

And here’s our latest report on the talks: