By Our Special Reports Team

1970 - 1999
					1999 The World Economic Forum faces protesters for the first time. More
	1998 Stuart Eizenstat, the US under-secretary of state, discusses Nazi gold with Swiss bankers at the forum. More
					1997 Bill Gates criticizes European executives at Davos for failing to take advantage of IT developments. More
	1996 The WEF's president and managing director publish their analysis of the threat posed by globalisation. More
					1992 Young corporate and political leaders form a new WEF-sponsored network. More
	1988 The Greek and Turkish premiers meet at the forum after a year of diplomatic crisis. More
					1987 Hens-Dietrich Genscher, West Germany's foreign minister, speaks in favour of Gorbachev's reforms. More
	1983 Corporate leaders begin to hold industry-specific meetings. More
					1982 The first select meeting of the world's top economic policy-makers takes place at Davos. More
	1976 The organisation broadens its outlook beyond the borders of Europe. More
					1973 The practice of holding individual country summits is initiated. More
	1971 The European Management Forum is born. More

	BUILDING THE FORUM	BUILDING THE PROFILE
1999	Klaus Schwab announces that a membership rotation is now being employed in order to allow the new leaders of the internet market to join the forum while maintaining its current size and club atmosphere	The theme of the Davos summit is "Responsible Globality". Participants engage in a debate on the viability of the global financial system. Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, Mahathir Mohamad, the Malaysian premier, Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt and Yashwant Sinha, India's finance minister, argue that the influence arbitrary market sentiment plays on global capital flow is unfair to developing countries. Robert Rubin, the US treasury secretary, discusses possible measures to curb the volatility of capital flows, and French and German delegates present the case for currency trading zones to promote global financial stability
1999		Al Gore, the US vice-president, urges world leaders to make "decisive progress" towards debt relief for developing countries, promising that "significant new US funding" will contribute to this effort. He also calls for an end to protectionism, while the European Union uses the Davos meeting as a venue for negotiations with South Africa for a free trade deal
1999		The annual meeting at Davos encounters its first ever demonstration of opposition, when a coalition of NGOs holds a press conference to protest against what they see as unprincipled profiteering on the part of WEF members against the backdrop of globalisation. Back to top
1998	The Business Consultative Council is established to mediate between corporate representatives and the UN	The annual meeting centres on the theme of "Priorities for the 21st Century". International competition regulation is high on the agenda, with Karel Van Miert, the European Union's competition commissioner, calling for strengthened anti-trust enforcement. Bill Gates defends the competition policies of his own company, in the context of the US government's continuing prosecution of an anti-trust action against it
1998	The Davos meeting spawns another new company: Industry to Industry (i2i.com) is a business-to-business trading site	Stuart Eizenstat, the US under-secretary of state, meets senior Swiss bankers at the forum to discuss issues related to Nazi gold deposits. Meanwhile, Thabo Mbeki, the South African deputy president, meets European central bankers in order to urge them not to sell their gold reserves. Back to top
1997	Internal email and video conferencing systems are introduced at the Davos summit	The theme for the year's Davos event is "Building the Network Society". Bill Gates, Microsoft's founder, and Andy Grove, Intel's CEO, berate European business leaders for their slow adoption of IT developments. Harald Einsman, Procter & Gamble's European boss, expresses his admiration for Greenpeace's web marketing expertise. Meanwhile, scientists argue over the extent to which artificial intelligence applications will be able to replicate human thinking in the near future. Back to top
1997	A new company, 50 per cent owned by the WEF, is launched: (Think Tools), a Zurich-based knowledge management consultancy, specialises in producing software to aid corporate communication and decision making	Pundits anticipate a Russian crisis, as General Alexander Lebed threatens to make an uninvited appearance at Davos to embarrass his rival Victor Chernomyrdin, the Russian Prime Minister. In the event, Lebed stays away
1996	The Council of the World Economic Forum meets for the first time, and members begin to play a role in the running of the foundation	Klaus Schwab, the WEF's president, and Claude Smadja, its managing director, publish their celebrated editorial in the International Herald Tribune warning of the problems posed by the accelerating pace of globalisation. A Davos summit on the subject of "Sustaining Globalisation" follows. Back to top
1996		Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority leader, met with Shimon Peres, the Israeli Prime Minister, and appealed to other participants at the Davos forum to put pressure on Israel not to proceed with border closures on the West Bank
1994	The WEF's membership reaches 1,000
1993	Industry summits begin
1992	The Global Leaders for Tomorrow network is created, based on nominations of rising business executives, politicians and academics. 200 nominees begin the network, with 100 more to be appointed each year. Back to top
1988		Turgut Ozal and Andreas Papandreou hold their first substantial meeting at the January gathering. This helps to calm the high tensions of the previous year, in which Greece and Turkey almost engaged in a military clash over oil-drilling rights in the Aegean. A subsequent round of talks is planned. Back to top
1988		In the aftermath of the October 1987 stock market crash, economists discuss their fears for an impending US recession
1987	The organisation changes its name to World Economic Forum, in recognition of its increasingly global outlook and membership	Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the West German foreign minister, tells world leaders at the Davos meeting: "If today there is a chance of reaching a turning point in East-West relations after 40 years of confrontation, it would be a mistake of historic proportions for the West to let the chance slip." The speech endorses Gorbachev's reforms and marks a change of direction in West German foreign policy, anticipating reunification with East Germany. Back to top
1986		Andreas Panandreou, the Greek Prime Minister and Turgut Ozal, his Turkish counterpart, shake hands for the first time at Davos
1983	The Davos Governors' Meetings are initiated, bringing together participants from specific sectors to discuss the issues affecting their industries. Back to top
1982	The first Informal Gathering of World Economic Leaders takes place and becomes an annual tradition of the Davos forum. Back to top
1979	The first annual Global Competitiveness Report is published	The EMF engages Chinese policy-makers for the first time, paving the way for the establishment of an annual meeting of business leaders in Beijing. It becomes known as the Chinese business summit
1976	The EMF becomes a membership-based organisation	The Arab-European Business Leaders' Symposium at Montreux is the first forum event not to focus exclusively on Europe. Back to top
1973	The first country forums are held, resulting in a year-round timetable of geographically-based summits. See the WEF's (Regional Networks map) for details of currently planned country meetings. Back to top
1971	The European Management Forum is founded, enshrining the Davos meeting as an annual event. Its purpose is to bring business and political leaders together to discuss current economic issues and formulate strategies to deal with them. Back to top
1970	Klaus Schwab, a professor of business administration at Geneva, organises a meeting of European corporate chiefs, to take place in January 1971 at Davos, Switzerland

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