An international workshop on women’s economic empowerment is set to be staged under the Taiwan-U.S. Global Cooperation and Training Framework April 16 in Taipei City.
Co-organized by the Ministries of Economic Affairs and Foreign Affairs and the American Institute in Taiwan, the Women’s Economic Empowerment Summit will feature business representatives, entrepreneurs and officials from 15 countries and territories such as Australia, India, Japan, South Korea and the U.S.
Discussions are expected to center on four areas: entrepreneurship, women in high-tech sectors, women’s global development and prosperity, and work-life balance. The lineup of speakers includes Jessica Liu, managing partner of Taipei-based accelerator AppWorks; Kathryn Kaufman, managing director for Global Women’s Issues at U.S.-based Overseas Private Investment Corp.; and Syaru Shirley Lin, political economy scholar at Chinese University of Hong Kong and University of Virginia.
Speaking at a news conference March 5, Ho Chin-tsang, director-general of the MOEA’s Small and Medium Enterprise Administration, said that strengthening women’s presence in startups and senior corporate positions helps drive economic growth and technological innovation.
The summit can play an important role in deepening women’s empowerment throughout the region by bringing together female leaders from various industries to discuss new ideas and best practices, Ho added.
Taiwan is internationally recognized for its efforts to foster female labor force participation. In the Women, Business and the Law report released in February by the World Bank, Taiwan was the sole Asian nation to receive a score of more than 90 out of 100, demonstrating strong progress toward gender equality, and one of six countries globally found to have removed all job restrictions on women.
According to the SMEA, the government is committed to boosting female entrepreneurship and corporate leadership. Related measures include a program to help more than 40 women-led SMEs expand to international markets through building ties with accelerators and venture capital firms.
SMEA statistics reveal that the number of women entrepreneurs and business leaders in Taiwan rose 2.67 percent year on year to 530,030 in 2017, accounting for 36.41 percent of the total.
Launched in June 2015, GCTF is a Taiwan-U.S. platform for expanding collaboration on global and regional challenges. A total of 15 international workshops have been organized under the initiative in areas spanning e-commerce, energy, environmental protection, media literacy and public health, with about 300 representatives from 33 countries and territories attending these events, according to the MOFA. (CPY-E)
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