Park world's 11th most powerful woman: Forbes

By Kang Seung-woo

President Park Geun-hye

German Chancellor Angela Merkel

Ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

President Park Geun-hye was named the world’s 11th-most powerful woman Tuesday by Forbes magazine.

It is the second consecutive year that the president has made the list of the American business magazine’s 100 most powerful women. She also came in 11th in last year's rankings.

Forbes introduced President Park as the leader of the world’s 14th-largest economy in Seoul, a mere 120 miles (193 kilometers) from her irascible and nuclear-tipped neighbor, Kim Jong-un.

It also said that like her approval ratings, the Korean economy has continued on a downward trend with weak wages, consumer spending and export market.

”Despite these shadows, Park recently signed a Canada-Korea free trade agreement, an environmental cooperation treaty with China and Japan and has called for a Northeast Asia nuclear safety body,” the magazine added.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel topped the list for the fifth straight year, followed by former U.S. Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Melinda Gates, the wife of former Microsoft founder Bill Gates and co-chairwoman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and General Motors CEO Mary Barra rounded out the top five.

Other notables on the list included American first lady Michelle Obama, at No. 10, and media mogul Oprah Winfrey, at No. 12, and singer Taylor Swift, at No. 64, who made her debut on the Forbes’ list, becoming the youngest person to make the roster.

Along with President Park, Lee Boo-jin was the only other Korean to make the list, which described her as ”the little Lee Kun-hee” and is now South Korea’s richest woman.

”The entrepreneurial Lee Boo-jin is poised for a greater role in the vast Samsung empire,” it said.