The government’s business team are heading to Switzerland for the annual World Economic Forum at Davos.

The summit is attracting more government attention than usual, despite being effectively rebuffed by the new Obama administration in Washington.

Business secretary Lord Mandelson, Shriti Vadera parliamentary undersecretary at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, and Mervyn Davies, the new trade and investment minister will head to the forum today.

Gordon Brown and chancellor Alistair Darling will arrive on Friday.

They join a record number of heads of state and government from across the world.

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin will be giving a keynote speech, as will Chinese premier Wen Jiabao.

But new American president Barack Obama has ordered several key US officials to stay at home.

Lawrence Summer, a regular Davos attendee and high-level economic advisor will remain in Washington, as will Tim Geithner who is still to be confirmed as Treasury secretary and Ben Bernanke, head of the US Federal Reserve.

The lack of US weight at the forum reflects some discomfort in the international community at the existence of the glitzy forum in the middle of the worst global economic crisis in living memory.

Many commentators – and politicians – find it darkly ironic that the very financial elite who caused the crisis will be attending talks themed around ‘A Post-Crisis World’.

Accordingly, a variety of social activists and protestors will be attending the summit.

They will be joined, on the other side of the security fence, by 2,500 of the world’s top business leaders and politicians in the Swiss mountain resort, with participants from over 90 countries.