Mumbai: The World Economic Forum (WEF) will begin its India summit, the 23 rd in its annual series, on Sunday, bringing together some 700 business, political and social leaders from 36 countries.

The event, co-hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), will cover four thematic pillars, namely competitiveness, inclusive growth, infrastructure, and risk management.

More than 350 chief executives and board-level corporate heads from overseas and 200 each from the Indian arms of foreign companies and domestic entities are expected to participate in the summit, the organisers said.

External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, finance minister P Chidambaram, commerce minister Kamal Nath and planning commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia would also address the summit.

The summit will release the `India@Risk 2007'''' report, jointly compiled by WEF and CII, which examines six global risks critical to India''''s future, said Sunil Bharti Mittal, president of CII and chairman of Bharti Enterprises.

The co-chairs of the event include Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries, Anand Mahindra of Mahindra and Mahindra, Edward J. Zander of Motorola, and Hector de J. Ruiz of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

"The summit is designed to generate insight and guide action to improve the alignment of India''''s development, industry and global agendas in the context of this year''''s theme ''''Building Centres of Excellence''''," the forum said.