New Zealand women highlighted at Shanghai

The advances made by New Zealand women over past decades will be highlighted at the WTCA Women Leadership Forum 2010 Conference in the historic Shanghai World Trade Expo in Shanghai, China this Saturday.

Minister of Women’s Affairs Pansy Wong is speaking at the opening of the event focusing on the strides New Zealand is taking to get more women into leadership roles.

“It is an emotional occasion for a Shanghai born woman to be invited to such an event to speak as New Zealand’s first cabinet minister of Asian ethnicity,” Mrs Wong says.

“The topic is Women Leadership, the Emerging Catalyst and Stabilizer for World Economic Development in the Crisis Era. New Zealand women are making progress when it comes to leadership roles but there is still a way to go.

“Women comprise over half of New Zealand’s population and almost half of New Zealand’s labour force and are vital to the our economy. Yet, women’s skills and experience are significantly under-utilised in leadership roles, and promoting women in leadership is one of the New Zealand Government’s top priorities.”

“We want New Zealand to prosper and there is evidence to support that having women on boards and in management positions is financially beneficial to businesses.

“To prepare women for more roles in management, we are focusing on up-skilling our population.

“We know the skills in any economy are critical to its performance and this Government is focused on ensuring as many New Zealanders as possible are educated to a high standard.

“But investing in skills is not sufficient. To maximise the productive capability of the economy the Government must also ensure those skills are retained and enhanced throughout a person’s lifetime.’’

Mrs Wong says the Government and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs are working directly with businesses to put forward the very strong business case for more women in positions of leadership.

“We are also pushing for more family friendly workplaces with more flexibility.”

Mrs Wong says there has also been considerable interest from China on how well New Zealand had recovered from Canterbury’s destructive 7.1 earthquake and why there were no fatalities.

“I will be able to thank China, an earthquake prone country, for its goodwill and concern.

“I will also discuss our building codes and recovery and emergency procedures. I will be telling them about New Zealand’s rigorous standards and the robustness of our people.’’

ENDS

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