Abu Dhabi: Her Highness Shaikha Fatima Bint Mubarak, Chairperson of the General Women’s Union, Supreme Chairperson of the Family Development Foundation and Chairwoman of the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood, has called for further deepening the relations of mutual strategic cooperation, especially in the field of women’s economic empowerment.
On the occasion of the opening of the Arab-Chinese Women’s Forum at Rosewood Hotel in Abu Dhabi, under the theme ‘Women’s Economic Empowerment’, Shaikha Fatima, patron of the forum, made the keynote address at the opening session.
Shaikha Fatima said that relations can be further enhanced by launching joint investment projects and implementing advanced projects to develop human resources, support women’s capabilities, provide technical and practical training opportunities for women, and create support for small and medium businesses on both sides to extend their productivity into foreign markets.
“Your coming together here today in this significant gathering is a clear expression of your wish to move forward in paving the way for a journey of a long-standing history of relationships characterised by friendship, mutual trust, understanding, dialogue, communication, cultural exchange, human interaction, and an intermingling that has lasted many centuries between the Arab and the Chinese civilisations through the ‘Silk Route’. We are now working together to build and revive this route as part of our developmental project. We hope that this forum will play a major and essential part in enriching dialogue and deepening the understanding that has been achieved,” said Shaikha Fatima.
The forum organised work sessions titled ‘Emirati and Chinese women and sustainable development’, ‘Women leaders: Challenges and opportunities’, ‘Journey of empowering Chinese women’, ‘Leading experiences of women in the field of business’, and ‘Leading model institutions in supporting women entrepreneurship’.
The sessions highlighted the developing relations between the two countries on the cultural and economic level, and hosted open debates on the sessions’ topics.
