This years World Economic Forum on the Near East will also be attended by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Iraqi Vice President Tarik Al Hashimi, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Tzipo Livni and the Arab League Secretarty General Amr Musa.
The Croatian president is expected to give a talk on Croatia as an example of "successful stories" and hold informal meetings with top officials.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a Geneva-based foundation whose annual meeting of top business leaders, national political leaders (presidents, prime ministers and others), and selected intellectuals and journalists is usually held in Davos, Switzerland. There are also regional meetings throughout the year. It was founded in 1971 by Klaus M. Schwab, a business professor in Switzerland.
During his stay in Jordan, Mesic will also attend a meeting the Group of Eleven (G11), a forum, constituted by developing countries aimed at easing their debt burden, narrowing the income gap with rich countries and lifting millions of people out of poverty.
King Abdullah of Jordan first proposed the group in 2005. In 20 September 2006, King Abdullah II unveiled the Group of 11 mostly lower-middle income countries on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York and appealed to the world's most developed economies for their assistance. The participating countries are Jordan, Croatia, Ecuador, Georgia, Honduras, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Sri Lanka and Tunisia. The group aims to persuade developed countries (mostly the G8) that given greater access to markets and debt forgiveness, they can harness growth and stability. 2006 was the first year of activities for G11, and Jordan chaired the group for that year. Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Jordan, Farouk Kasrawi, current advisor to the King of Jordan, has started touring the G-11 countries in order to coordinate prior to the May 2007 World Economic Forum meeting set to take place at the Dead Sea in Jordan.