Political and business leaders attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, have shared a gloomy outlook on the prospects for the world's economy in 2003.
Participants agreed that reform was needed everywhere - in America's boardrooms, Japan's banks and Europe's labour markets. But few expect much improvement in economic growth this year.
The United States Secretary of Commerce, Mr Donald Evans, sought to put a brave face on his country's economic troubles and insisted that the US economic fundamentals were sound.
He predicted that President George W Bush's $674 billion (€622.5 billion) tax cut package would add 0.6 per cent to US growth this year and create more than two million jobs over the next three years.
"Things do continue to get better in America," he said.
Microsoft's Mr Bill Gates was more downbeat, saying that although he was optimistic about technology in the long term, he saw no immediate prospect of recovery.
"This economy is fairly flat - technology spending, there's no big tick-up," he said.
No economy has been flatter than Japan's for the past decade and Tokyo's finance minister, Mr Heizo Takenaka, unnerved many Europeans at Davos by reminding them that Japan's growth was close to that of the euro zone last year.
He expressed the hope that his government's reforms would help to revive the economy but he remained deeply cautious.
"We still have the DNA of a strong and energetic Japan. We have the human resources, the technology and the savings. At the same time, we have bad DNA - deflation, non-performing loans and anti-reform pressure from vested interests," he said.
European politicians were more frank about the EU's economic problems, with France's finance minister, Mr Francis Mer, acknowledging that Europe is struggling to cope with an ageing population and a lack of economic dynamism.
He said that Europe's psychology had to change to create economic confidence and that citizens should understand that their economic destiny was in their own hands rather than those of the state.
He defended his country's defiance in the face of last week's EU warning that France was in danger of breaching the Stability and Growth Pact, adding that the pact should be changed.
"The problem is that this Stability and Growth Pact has not been correctly designed to take account of our responsibility to create growth. We need to introduce some common policy to enable us to create growth," he said.
Most participants in debates at Davos agreed that reforming European labour markets was key to improving economic growth.
Most wanted to cut the level of non-wage labour costs, such as social insurance contributions and to make it easier for companies to sack employees.
Such measures would not help the plight of Mr Louis Schweitzer, chairman of Renault, who admitted in Davos that he would be selling a lot fewer cars this year.
"If I'm optimistic, the market is going to be down 1 per cent this year. If I'm pessimistic, the market is going to be down 6 per cent," he said.
