The first tried to identify the point at which central banks will stop raising interest rates, saying characteristically that "the long period of monetary expansion that followed the global financial crisis supported Western economies, but the bankers should have stopped earlier, because they have generated a multi-speed markets, and particularly real estate markets at the expense of listed companies after the pandemic. He even added that this led to the privileged and at the same time uncontrolled investors' shift to private capital and the drastic increase in opacity.
He argued that the ...obsession to reach back at the 2% inflation target was wrong and predicted that it would take two years more for real estate valuations to catch up with current developments on the world stage especially after the pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine.
On the other hand Ian Bremmel focused on the pandemic, technology and climate change. He argued that these factors are affecting the geopolitical relations and generating tensions; since the international organizations established to ensure the institutions created to support those impacts after the second world war (UN , IMF, NATO, etc.) have no longer the power to support their generative forces.
"The most risky factor of all," he concluded, "are the developments in China rather than the expansionist dynamics of developing countries as new technologies will reshape the geopolitical order, disrupting our lives and destabilizing our societies faster than we can afford to deal with their effects".
This year's EPRA conference has also touched on - at leadership level - the trends in the individual sectors, integration of ESG criteria, the potential impact that technological developments will have in the field, both at energy resource management level, data management and new building construction methods, and finally the first day closed with a discussion on the future of cities and the reintegration of the existing building stock.
