With global economy under attack, IMF's Lagarde champions women at APEC

Record ID: 78414

  • Title: With global economy under attack, IMF's Lagarde champions women at APEC
  • Date: 18th November 2016
  • Summary: LIMA, PERU (NOVEMBER 18, 2016) (REUTERS) ***WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** HELICOPTER FLYING OVER SUMMIT VARIOUS OF EXTERIOR OF GREAT NATIONAL THEATRE, SITE OF ASIA PACIFIC ECONOMIC COOPERATION (APEC) SUMMIT SPEECHES SIGN FOR APEC SUMMIT VARIOUS OF PEOPLE ENTERING SUMMIT MANAGING DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND, CHRISTINE LAGARDE, ENTERING SUMMIT GENERAL OF HALL FOR ADDRESSES
  • Embargoed: 3rd December 2016 22:25
  • Keywords: APEC Christine Lagarde Lima Great National Theatre gender gap
  • Location: LIMA, PERU
  • City: LIMA, PERU
  • Country: Peru
  • Topics: Diplomacy/Foreign Policy,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA00158Z4MYV
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:The managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde, was in Peru Friday (November 18) to promote female empowerment in the labour force while speaking at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Lima.
    Her appearance at the 21-member summit comes the same week the IMF said its board will consider Egypt's $12 billion bailout program on Nov. 11.
    Leaders of Pacific rim nations began gathering in Peru on Friday seeking to salvage hopes for regional trade as prospects of a Donald Trump presidency sounded a possible death knell for the U.S-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact.
    But the position of females in the economy is also ranking high on the summit agenda. Earlier on Friday, the fifth anniversary of a declaration at an APEC summit in San Francisco to promote female empowerment was marked. Speaking at the event, U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, rebuked closed societies that erect "quasi-religious and certainly cultural barriers" to women's advancement in the economy.
    Lagarde, for her part, laid out an economics-based rationale.
    "I don't want to convince here today about the moral necessity and the moral cause that constitutes women's equality and the necessity to fill that gap. I know that I am talking to a business community, and I want to convince you that it's an economic game-changer at all levels," she began.
    She went on to provide hard proof for the importance of promoting women.
    "One area where clearly progress has to be made is regarding the composition of boards, and corporate positions in general. Our research has shown that adding one more woman in senior management, without changing the size of the management, just adding one person that will replace somebody who retires, somebody who resigns, it happens. Well that is associated invariably with a return on assets which is anywhere between plus eight to plus thirteen percent," she said.
    Discussions between the 21 members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit are also to be dominated by fears of rising anti-globalization sentiment in the West, where many worry about losing jobs to low-wage economies, and China's burgeoning role in global trade.
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