The Youth Trade Summit on Gender taking place at the WTO on 13-14 November aims to highlight young people’s perspectives on women’s economic empowerment.
“This is the first time the WTO is organising such a landmark event involving young people from all over the world. They have a crucial role to play in shaping nations,” Deputy Director-General Xiangchen Zhang said at the opening ceremony.
Also at the opening was Xiana Méndez Bértolo, Spain’s Secretary of State for Trade, who underlined the importance of reducing the gender gap.
“Trade is a catalyst for women's economic empowerment,” DDG Zhang told participants. “There is an increasing need to have more women in the global economy. The more they are involved, the more economies grow.”
“This is what data is telling us,” he continued. “Increasing women's participation in the labour market to the same level as men's would raise many countries' GDP up to 34%,” said DDG Zhang. “As the WTO's upcoming Trade Policy Monitoring Report will highlight, governments have been increasingly including gender equality as part of their development plans and trade policies, recognising that women's economic empowerment improves poverty reduction and contributes to their development,” he said.
Reiterating the sentiments expressed by DDG Zhang, Xiana Méndez Bértolo, Secretary of State for Trade at Spain's Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, emphasized that closing the gender gap in Spain could result in an estimated 18% increase in GDP.
