WorldHANGZHOU, AFP -G20 leaders resolved to combat a “populist backlash” against global trade, and highlight the benefits it has brought including lifting millions out of poverty, IMF's Christine Lagarde said Monday. Lagarde said that the benefits of free trade in terms of lifting productivity, giving people choices and hauling them out of poverty were being drowned out by the chorus of opposition. There was “a determination around the room to better identify the benefits of trade in order to respond to the easy populist backlash against globalisation,” the IMF managing director said after a summit in China. “The way, for instance, China has managed to bring more than 700 million people out of poverty towards the formation of a middle class. In an opening speech Sunday Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a stern warning over sluggish global growth, financial market turbulence and receding global trade and investment.

Source: Sunday Times September 05, 2016 12:33 UTC