NEW DELHI – Ivanka Trump, daughter and advisor of US President Donald Trump, used on Tuesday a speech at a meeting of entrepreneurs in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad to promote the role of women in business as key to economic and social development.

Ivanka Trump made her comments alongside Prime Minister Narendra Modi during an address at the eighth edition of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit.

“Fuelling the growth of women-led businesses isn’t simply good for our society – it’s good for our economy,” said Ivanka Trump.

Ivanka Trump, who was leading a delegation sent to the event by the United States, said India’s economy could grow by $150 billion over the next three years if it closed the gender gap by 50 percent.

Speaking to an audience of some 1,500 entrepreneurs – most of them women for the first time in the event’s history – she said there was a “unique multiplier effect” when women worked, as they were “more likely to hire other women.”

“As a former entrepreneur, employer, and executive in a male-dominated industry, I’ve seen first-hand that all too often women must do more than their male counterparts to prove themselves at work,” she said.

She also reiterated the words of her father, Donald Trump, who earlier in the year declared that India had a true friend in the White House.

Ivanka Trump has participated in other such international events, such as a G20 leaders summit held in the northern German city of Hamburg in July.

The GES of entrepreneurs was set to run between Nov. 28-30.