ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir is attending the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos this week alongside Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, marking a rare appearance by a serving army chief at the global gathering of political and business leaders.
Pakistan’s participation at Davos comes as Islamabad seeks to attract investment, project economic stability and deepen engagement with key international partners following recent reforms aimed at stabilizing the economy.
While Pakistani leaders routinely attend the World Economic Forum, it is uncommon for a serving army chief to be present. In 2017, former army chief Raheel Sharif addressed the forum only after his retirement, while General Pervez Musharraf spoke at Davos on a number of occasions in his role as president, not as military chief.
Pakistan’s governance structure has evolved in recent years, particularly through the expanded role of the military in economic decision-making through bodies such as the Special Investment Facilitation Council, a civil-military platform designed to fast-track foreign investment in sectors including minerals, energy, agriculture and technology.
“The Prime Minister and the Field Marshal met with the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud,” Sharif’s office said in a statement.
Officials say the delegation’s engagements focused on strengthening economic ties and maintaining high-level contact with partners in the Middle East, Central Asia and the United States at a time of shifting global economic and strategic alignments.
The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting brings together heads of state, ministers, investors and corporate leaders to discuss global economic risks, investment trends and geopolitical challenges. Davos is not a military forum, and while security issues are discussed there, the physical presence of a serving military chief remains the exception, not the norm, across countries. When military figures do appear, it is usually because they are heads of state or government, retired and speaking as security experts or hold a civilian defense portfolio such as defense minister or national security adviser.
