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SOARING SWISS FRANC PROMPTS DAVOS MOVE TO AVIEMORE

In a world exclusive, Scot-Buzz editor Bill Jamieson reveals a dramatic move sparked by the sudden leap in the Swiss franc. The World Economic Forum, due to begin at the ski resort of Davos, has been switched this week to the Ardlogie Guest House, Aviemore.

World leaders including Chinese premier Li Keqiang, Angela Merkel and US Treasury Secretary John Kerry together with Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and BP’s Bob Dudley have been caught out by last week’s dramatic move by the Swiss National Bank to renege on previous assurances and remove the cap on the currency.

Hotel, bar and restaurant costs for incoming visitors have soared, sparking a move to Aviemore for the five day event. “In Davos, you’ll need more quantitative easing”, quipped one attendee, “just for a round of drinks”.

The BBC has taken the Macdonald Aviemore Resort while other media are being directed to budget hotels in nearby Newtonmore.

This high minded event draws a wide array of academics, corporate leaders and politicians at an otherwise dull and depressing period in the year for the annual feast of name-dropping.

The venue switch will mean an easier commute for this year’s WEF conference co-chair Katherine Garret-Cox, chief executive of the £3.5 billion Dundee-based Alliance Trust.

She told The Sunday Times of the immense value of the event, whose themes this year will be growth, social inclusion, corporate leadership, climate change and the future of the internet.

“A lot gets done behind closed doors”, she said. “In a few days you can meet and have conversations with people who could take you a year or two otherwise to co-ordinate diaries with.

“I sat next to Bill Gates at dinner a few years back and we ended up talking not just about the advance of technology but bigger issues like climate change and the extent to which people will be replaced by robots. It was truly brilliant.”

Tough luck if your dinner companion this year is Willie Rennie.

“There’s an increasing fear”, says Garret-Cox, “that the world is becoming more federal and fragmented while the macro backdrop is increasingly fragile. Leadership, particularly in 2015, needs to be extremely resilient.”

And nowhere is resilience more needed than at the boarding-party threatened Alliance Trust.

Scot-Buzz has had an exclusive sneak preview of key presentations at the conference.

Unmissable events include:

Christine Lagarde in dialogue with Russell Brand (plus revised  IMF forecasts for the week ahead)

Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein on My Plan to Tackle Income and Wealth Inequality

Scotland’s Finance Minister John Swinney on a new set of forecasts of North Sea oil revenues (sold out).

Katherine Garret-Cox on Hot Stock Market Tips (seats available)

Ed Balls Masterclass: Debt Reduction For All

Mark Carney on ‘Central Banking Without Surprises’ (empty chair available on stage,  Swiss National Bank governor has  withdrawn)

After dinner entertainment: Frankie Boyle explains Quantitative Easing

Celebrity author Alan Cochrane, who has met them all and dismissed them as eejits, will be signing copies of his book Alan Cochrane: My Part in His Downfall.

In addition, Creative Scotland, in association with Scottish Film, is sponsoring the premiere showing of the epic: The Scottish Independence Referendum (running time 5 hours, plus two intervals; audience advised to pre-order drinks).

For the world’s media looking for local colour, nearby Newtonmore offers a wide range of offbeat attractions. These include the Waltzing Waters Light and Water Show, the Highland Folk Park, the Highland Folk Museum, the Clan Macpherson Museum and General Wade’s Roads.

Alternatively the 8.30am train from Aviemore gets you back into Edinburgh at 11.17.