Francois Hollande, Ban Ki-moon to attend 2018 Astana Economic Forum

ASTANA. KAZINFORM - Former President of France Francois Hollande, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, physicist and futurist Michio Kaku and many others will be the speakers of the upcoming Astana Economic Forum in the Kazakh capital this May, Kazinform has learnt from the official website of the event.

Organizers claim this year the forum has underwent fundamental changes.

"The transformation of the Astana Economic Forum, Eurasia's leading conference on economic matters, into The Global Challenges Summit well demonstrates Kazakhstan's new status in the international discourse on the opportunities and risks presented by planetary development," the organizers say.

It is noted that economic growth and resource resilience, digitalization and urbanization, longevity and the financial revolution, global security and cultural change - these are the global trends that form the basis for the program focus of The Global Challenges Summit to bring together in mid-May in Astana hundreds of speakers drawn from the ranks of the most prominent politicians, businessmen and scholars, along with the thousands of experts taking part in the forum.

The agenda of the forum is split into 11 themes, including Unified Economy, Global Strategy, Urbanization, Sustainability, Clean Energy, Singularity, Digital World, Future of Money, Global Security, A New Mankind, Longevity.

Apart from the abovementioned speakers, the forum will be attended by Jim O'Neill, ex-chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Hans Timmer, Chief Economist for the Europe and Central Asia region of the World Bank, Tristram Stuart, writer and author of Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal, Andrey Sharonov, Dean of Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO, Stefka Slavova, Lead Economist in the World Bank Group's Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice at Central Asia, and many others.

Astana will host the summit on May 17-19.