PM May urges firms to end short-term thinking, show global leadership

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Multinational businesses must avoid short-term thinking and show leadership to help restore faith in globalisation among citizens who feel left behind by the pace of economic change, British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Thursday.

May said businesses must put aside short-term considerations and invest in people and communities for the long term.

"We must heed the underlying feeling that there are some companies, particularly those with a global reach who are playing by a different set of rules to ordinary working people," she told business leaders at the World Economic Forum, a gathering of business and political elites in the Swiss Alps.

"So it is essential for business to demonstrate leadership, to show that in this globalised world everyone is playing by the same rules."

(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper and Noah Barkin, writing by William James, editing by Kylie MacLellan)