Daily Times

Inequitable wealth distribution is a serious threat to global peace and the World Economic Forum (WEF) must restructure its policies for fairer economies with positive chain reaction to ensure just distribution of wealth. In a letter addressed to Prof Klaus Schwab, executive chairman of the WEF, Engr Ahmed Hassan, former vice-president the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI), said that rising carve of global wealth inequality has posed a serious threat to world peace as this it is rising despite of all efforts and coronavirus.

Quoting Oxfam data, he said that the richest one percent of the world population has twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people.

“It is tantamount to foment social instability throughout the world”, he said and added that the world’s top 32 companies gained more than $109 billion in the critical situation of pandemic while most of the companies collapsed due to shutdown. He also quoted the data of Bloomberg and said that the top ten richest individuals hold $1.074 billion wealth. “The issue of income and wealth inequality is also prevalent in Pakistan whereas around 1/3 of the total population of over 200 million is currently living below the poverty line.

Appreciating the efforts of WEF to initiate dialogue among key stakeholders, he said that we must discuss issues to promote fairer economies. He said that the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) is also carrying out extensive research in this regard and policy recommendations are being made to the government. He said that discussions and work being carried out at the WEF must be shared to resolve this most ticklish issue. “Our individual and collective efforts will help in starting a chain reaction for the fair distribution of global economic resources,”he opined.