Participants listen to speakers during the session "What is the 'New Normal' for Global Growth?" on the first day of the World Economic Forum in Davos Wednesday. Photo: AFP

The annual 2010 World Economic Forum (WEF) opened Wednesday in Davos, Switzerland, amid increasing confidence in the world economy recovering this year.

However, concerns about unemployment, debt crisis, asset bubbles and trade protectionism still cloud the economic outlook.

Additionally, analysts said, the world will undoubtedly look to the rising power of China at this forum, hoping that the strong engine can give the world economy a further boost through its growing buying power. Pressuring the appreciation of the Chinese currency may be another option, but it will certainly be met with resistance by China, analysts added.

More than 2,500 leaders from over 90 countries, representing business, government and civil sectors, gathered at Switzerland's Davos ski resort Wednesday with a theme of "Improve the State of the World: Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild."

Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang was heading the largest-ever Chinese delegation to this year's forum, which will run through Sunday.

High-profile business leaders from the telecommunication sector also participated, including Wang Jianzhou, chairman and chief executive of China Mobile, the world's largest mobile-phone operator, and Sun Yafang, chairwoman of Huawei Technologies, the largest networking and telecommunications-equipment supplier in China.

Business confidence is bouncing back. According to a survey released Wednesday, 81 percent of 1,200 CEOs in 52 countries are confident about revenue prospects for the next 12 months, up from 64 percent a year ago, and 31 percent are "very confident," up 10 percentage points from last year's low.

The survey found that 39 percent of industry bosses aimed to increase headcounts in 2010, while 25 percent planned more job cuts, down from nearly half who slashed jobs last year.

On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) raised its estimates of the world economy in 2010 and 2011, saying the economy was recovering faster than previously anticipated and would grow 3.9 percent this year and 4.3 percent in 2011.

But the recovery is proceeding at different speeds around the world, with emerging markets, led by Asia, seen as relatively vigorous, and advanced economies viewed as still sluggish and dependent on government stimulus measures, the IMF said in an update to its World Economic Outlook.

Issues on the agenda include what lessons the world should draw from the recent financial and economic crisis and how to promote a stable recovery, global ne-gotiations on climate change, and the reconstruction of quake-hit Haiti. Dubai's sovereignty crisis is also expected to be a hot topic at the forum.

Jeremy Jurgens, senior director of the Center for Global Growth Companies at the World Economic Forum, told the Global Times that the world is interested in the effort that China has made, both domestically and worldwide.

"With the tremendous contributions China made to global growth in 2009, there is a very keen interest to understand the steps China will take in 2010 to maintain strong growth and what ef-forts will be made to further strengthen domestic consumption," Jurgens said,

Michael Talyor, chief economist of the China Economic Policy (London) Research Center, also said he believes there will be "a lot of talk about China" at Davos.

He said that in order to assure the world about its arrival at the peak of the world economy, China must re-emphasize its commitment to stimulating domestic demand, or by allowing a revaluation that the West believed is undervalued by 45 percent.

According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) last week, China's gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 10.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, with the full year GDP growth reaching 8.7 percent to 33.53 trillion yuan ($4.91 trillion).

And China is expected to overtake Japan as the world's second-largest economy in the near term. China's GDP stands at $4.9 trillion, slightly below Japan's $5.1 trillion, according to Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs estimated in 2008 that China's GDP could equal that of the US by 2027, compared with its previous estimate of 2041.

"China is the West's greatest hope and greatest fear," said Kristin Forbes, a former member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, according to a report by The New York Times Wednesday.

"No one was quite ready for how fast China has emerged," said Forbes, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to the report. "Now everyone is trying to understand what sort of China they will be dealing with."

Yi Xianrong, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said China should remain clear-minded about its economic situation.

"It's the mindset of declining aristocrats. On the one hand, the West is expecting to benefit from the fruit of China's growing prosperity, and on the other hand, it fears China's rise will challenge its position and is reluctant to give China more opportunities to develop and prosper," said Tian Yun, vice president of the China Macro Economics Institute.

A Global Risks 2010 report released by the WEF two weeks ago warns of the possibility of China's economy overheating and, instead of helping support global economic growth, preventing a fully fledged recovery from developing.

Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang said at a meeting with business leaders in Zurich on Monday that China's economy still faces some uncertainties, and the government will keep its proactive fiscal policy and flexible monetary policy.

Beijing will also restructure the economy, and "try hard to boost domestic demand, especially residents' consumption demand," Li said.

Apart from China, Other emerging countries, including Brazil, South Africa and India, are expected to help the once-fragile world economy out of mire.

For the first time, the forum opened up special topics regarding the four countries for discussion.