We draw many benefits from globalization that people take for granted. Poverty has been reduced massively around the world. If you look at the Chinese numbers, it is quite mind-boggling: 700 million people taken out of poverty in a matter of 40 years, the poverty rate having moved from over 30 per cent from hardly six per cent now. That would not have happened if there had not been globalization.
Christine LagardeBefore a negotiation can proceed and be completed, what is outside the scope of negotiation needs to be agreed.
Christine LagardeWhen in one area of the world the standard of living and the size of the middle class increases, it is going to have an effect elsewhere in the world as well.
Christine LagardeIn the area of trading, it is now an academically demonstrated fact that women tend to be a little bit more risk-adverse. They don't move positions as quickly and as erratically as men. Maybe it is a bit less profitably, but I think it would have been less risky.
Christine LagardeI think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education. I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens.
Christine Lagarde