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The conference will be opened by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, with speakers from all over the world coming to debate the post-crisis world economy and how to move Asian economies forward.

The event, co-organised by the Thai Health Promotion Foundation (THPF) and The Nation, will take place on Friday in the Plaza Athenee Hotel on Wireless Road in Bangkok. Some 400 businessmen, academicians, policy-makers and non-governmental-organisation representatives will attend the fully booked conference.

"The conference is timely, because it will help reshape our thinking about economic sustainability. It cannot be business as usual after the crisis. The THPF hopes to play a useful role in promoting sustainability in the coming years," said deputy CEO Krissada Raungarreerat.

The Nation chief operating officer Pana Janviroj said the conference had attracted enormous interest in view of the changing economic landscape.

"Everyone seems to want to know what will emerge from the economic crisis. We're also very pleased that many distinguished speakers have accepted our invitation."

Stiglitz is expected to assess the latest US economic rescue package of the Barack Obama administration and its implications for global and Asian economies, as well as efforts to reform the global financial system.

Among his many responsibilities, Stiglitz is co-chair of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress and chairman of the Commission of Experts of the President of the UN General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System.

The first session will be "Smarter Capitalism in the New Global Business Order". Panellists will be Malaysian economist Jomo Kwame Sundaram, better known as Jomo KS, assistant secretary-general for economic Development at the UN in New York; Yuncheng Zhang, deputy director of the Centre for the Study of Globalisation at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing; and Don Bhasavanich, a councillor at the Thailand Management Association. This session will be moderated by Asian Wall Street Journal associate editor Peter Stein.

Th second session will be "Reshaping Economic Development with a Gross National Progress Index". Panellists will be Jayati Ghosh from Jawaharlal Nehru University's Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in Delhi, who will speak on "Why Reshape Economic Development?" He will be joined by former deputy prime minister Paiboon Wattanasiritham.

The third session will be "Profitability and Social Responsibility". Panellists will be former deputy education minister Varakorn Samakoses and Arthur Capilo, head of operations and financial services in Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia for international consultants Booz & Co. The moderator will be Willie Tham, CEO of HSBC in Thailand.

Apirak Kosayodhin, a former Bangkok governor and an adviser to Abhisit, will lead the final session on "The Creative Economy", which is high on Thailand's national economic-policy agenda. He will be joined by Stephen Spratt, director of the Centre for the Future Economy, whose website is www.neweconomics.org.