 Dear Mr. Ma, ladies and gentlemen, but above all, ladies in the room, I am delighted to share some thoughts with you before the start of Alibaba's inaugural global conference on women's entrepreneurship. As UN Secretary General's Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development and as a mother of three daughters, I welcome the opportunity to address a conference with so many inspiring women. Under quality lies at the heart of development progress. We know that women deliver the highest return for social and development investment. When a woman is able to save money, expand her business and get ahead, she invests her earnings back into her children's education, healthcare and her family's future. In my own work, I was recently reminded of how persistent the gender gap remains. New data was just released showing that access to financial services for the poor has improved a remarkable 20% in the last three years, cause for huge celebration. But during the same period, literally no progress was made on closing the gender gap. Women remain 9 percentage points less likely to have savings accounts, insurance, payments, credit or any other basic financial service. This, while these are essential to stabilize their lives and pull themselves out of poverty. I have seen how hard women work, how high the hurdles are that they face, and how essential their empowerment is for the welfare of families, communities and for entire economies. Last November, during our visit here to China, I met a remarkable woman called Zhu Guozhi, whose entrepreneurial spirit exemplifies so much of what women have to offer. After some years raising livestock for a living in Hebei province near Beijing, she decided to switch over to cultivating tomatoes. Her first crop was a success, so she sold her livestock and invested the money in 13 greenhouses. It came as a shock to discover that the greenhouses were not insulated well enough to protect the plants from the severe winter temperatures. She took out her first ever loan, which she used to purchase a protected cover to shield her tomatoes against the cold. In Aminta, she has hired 13 local villages to help. Her husband now works for her and she's placed a family on a more solid financial footing. I think all of us can recognize a little something of ourselves in Guozhi's story. The vision, the hard work, the willingness to take educated risks. Guozhi had help from her mother, her husband, her community and from the local microfinance institution. But in the end, she was a driving force behind her success, as many women are. Guozhi's story reminds us that if we can give women the necessary financial tools, their drive and determination will benefit not only themselves, but their families and communities as well. So please, let's give them that chance. I hope you have a very productive conference. Thank you.