This is Niall FitzGerald's 20th visit to the annual Davos think-in. The Sligo-born chairman of Reutersbelieves the current market turmoil could, in fact, resolve an issue high on his agenda at this week's World Economic Forum - the conclusion of the Doha round of world trade talks.

Deadline after deadline has been missed in the Doha round since it was launched more than six years ago in the Qatari capital with the aim of promoting development by reducing trade barriers.

FitzGerald is chairing a meeting in Davos on Saturday involving EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, World Trade Organisation director-general Pascal Lamy and India's industry minister Kamal Nath. He hopes the meeting will spur a push towards agreement on Doha.

FitzGerald describes Davos as "unique", the only place "where you get such a gathering of people from across different sectors, from different communities who, for a concentrated period of time, focus on a relatively small number of issues".

Does he believe the world is sliding towards recession?

"It depends what you mean by recession. If recession is negative economic growth, I don't think so. If recession is very low economic growth, I think it certainly will be in the US and potentially in Europe. You would be foolish to assume anywhere more than in the 1-2 per cent range, if that."

FitzGerald says delegates must be licking their wounds this year after the crisis in the financial markets. He criticised the finance world for creating problems by "misusing language". "People started talking about sub-prime when it was in fact dredges". He says delegates will see the current market turbulence as "a timely wake-up call".