By Alec Hogg
Last night president-in-waiting Cyril Ramaphosa and six other members of SA’s national cabinet left for Davos. Also en route to make the case for Southern Africa’s revival is Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa. With media magnet first timers Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also due, attracting attention won’t be easy. But after Goldman Sachs called South Africa 2018’s best Emerging Market, the smart money will be listening to CR and the Crocodile. And the big money is certainly here.
One hopes those flying in from the warm south haven’t forgotten their snow boots – and dollops of patience. Getting around Europe’s highest town will be challenging this year after the highest snowfalls since 1999. It has been so heavy trains have literally been stopped – yesterday we disembarked half way to Davos to be bussed for 20km around an impassable area.
Barbara Gassler, editor of the local Davoser Zeitung newspaper, tells me the area is into its third week of unusually heavy falls. A number of houses on outskirts were evacuated because of an avalanche threat. And despite energy-sapping hours, municipal workers are struggling to keep the roads clear with traffic sure to be even worse than the usual WEF-week crawl.
Mother Nature is also showing us this is an unusual year. Helping to tee us up for an extraordinary Davos 2018.
