The Week to Come

It's late Saturday afternoon in Southern California. A beutiful day of clear skies and mild winds sweeping in from the Pacific. The occasional windsurfer is still trying his or her luck in the gentle waves.

But soon I'm taking off from LAX in the direction of Europe and Sweden nine timezones towards the East.

As usual, there will be the possibility of spending the beginning of the week at home in Stockholm. Monday will be the taping of two further episodes of "Dinner with Bildt" broadcast on TV8, while Tuesday will be dominated by a seminar looking back on a decade of Swedish membership in the European Union, and hopefully somewhat into the future as well.

But then it's off to Beijing in China for a couple of days. I'm taking part in a panel in a major conference for business leaders there organized by Business Week, but will also give a breakfast talk to the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in the Chinese capital.

And from there I will head West over Siberia back to Europe and to Moscow.

There, over the coming weekend, will be the RAND-sponsored Russia Business Dialogue with brings together the new leaders of the economy of Russia with business leaders and others from the United States as well as Europe.

It's normally discussions as intense as they are interesting.

And from there I'll be back in Stockholm little more than a week from now.

I guess it's all what we call globalisation.