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HK vows to empower women workers

September 17, 2011
Hong Kong is a services and knowledge-based economy with women playing a key part in the city’s progress, and the Hong Kong Government is fully committed to empowering women in the workforce, the Secretary for Labour & Welfare Matthew Cheung said in San Francisco yesterday.
 
Mr Cheung was addressing a high level policy dialogue on fostering women’s economic empowerment among the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation economies, which was the highlight of the APEC Women & the Economy Summit.
 
Chaired by the United States’ Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and attended by senior Secretaries and Ministers of APEC economies, the dialogue focused on increasing women’s access to capital and markets, and building their capacity and leadership.
 
“In promoting the interests and well-being of women in the economy, we have adopted a three-pronged approach – what we call the three ‘E’s’ strategy. In a nutshell, this includes, educating, enabling and empowering women to play a full role in the economy,” Mr Cheung said.
 
Being consecutively ranked the world’s freest economy by both the US-based Heritage Foundation and the Fraser Institute in Canada, Hong Kong thrives on open markets and free flows of capital, information, ideas and talent.
 
“We will continue to build on these essential qualities to make Hong Kong tick,” he said, adding the Equal Opportunities Commission was established in 1996 and the Women’s Commission was established in 2001. The latter plays a high-level strategic role in advising the Government on policies, legislation and services affecting women.
 
Making reference to the successful introduction of the statutory minimum wage legislation in Hong Kong in May this year, Mr Cheung said more women have joined the labour market and found jobs since May, compared to last year.
 
“In recent months, there has been a 4.6% increase in the female labour force and a 5.5% increase in total employment for women. The increases were notably higher than those recorded for male workers, suggesting that women have benefited more than men from the new legislation,” he said.
 
Speaking on capacity building, Mr Cheung said a wide range of publicly funded vocational training, retraining and continuing education opportunities were in place to promote the overall quality of Hong Kong’s workforce. Such training programmes are market-oriented and are provided to men and women alike.
 
Turning to women's leadership, Mr Cheung said 35% of senior management positions in Hong Kong's private businesses are held by women, while female students have taken up 53.7% of the total enrolment of all Government-funded tertiary education programmes.
 
Mr Cheung said the government will continue to foster a level playing field for business in Hong Kong, and that included a level playing field for women's participation in the economy.
 
The summit concluded with the passing of the San Francisco Declaration for APEC economies to take concrete actions to realise the full potential of women in 2011 and beyond.
 
Mr Cheung will return to Hong Kong tomorrow.


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