Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (Toronto)

Director of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (Toronto) (HKETO), Ms Emily Mo, virtually attended the signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) held in Hong Kong between the Women’s Network (TWN) of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong (CanCham HK) and the Women’s International Network (WIN) of the Hong Kong-Canada Business Association (Toronto Section) (HKCBA) on November 27 (Toronto time).

The MoU provides a collaborative framework to facilitate and regularise the engagement between WIN and TWN on shared interests, including advancing women’s empowerment in business and promoting women-owned small and medium enterprises, and international trade and investments.

In delivering the welcome remarks at the ceremony, Ms Mo noted that women entrepreneurs and professionals have become increasingly important in the world’s economic development. “It is encouraging to see that more of the business community recognise the importance of full and equal participation of women in business,” said Ms Mo.

Ms Mo remarked that in the past few years, the HKETO has witnessed the establishment and growth of TWN and WIN during the pandemic. “Both TWN and WIN demonstrated strong commitment to empowering and encouraging women in the furtherance of international business between Canada and Hong Kong,” Ms Mo said. “The events held by them were impressive and the bonding built between the female members is significantly strong.”

Ms Mo also shared that Hong Kong is a place for women to shine. The female labour force participation rate and percentage of the public-funded university students are about and over 50 per cent respectively in the city. “In Hong Kong, over 35% of the mangers, administrators and professionals are women,” Ms Mo continued. “Under the ‘one country, two systems’ principle, Hong Kong is entering into a new era, benefitting from the major strategies like the National 14th Five-Year Plan, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area development and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.”  

Ms Mo added that all the new developments in Hong Kong mean opportunities for both the Canadian and Hong Kong business community, including their female leaders.

Before closing, Ms Mo congratulated the CanCham HK and the HKCBA for signing of the MOU between TWN and WIN, which will consolidate the work and create synergy to advance women’s empowerment in business and promote Canada-Hong Kong trade.

The MOU signing ceremony was joined by other speakers including Consul and Senior Trade Commissioner of Consulate General of Canada in Hong Kong, Mr Jason Reeve; Associate Director of Service Promotion of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, Mr Chris Lo; Associate Director-General of Investment Promotion (Business Development) of Invest Hong Kong, Mr Jimmy Chiang; Founder and Chair of TWN of CanCham, Ms Madeleine Behan; and Chair of WIN of HKCBA, Ms Sonja Chong.