SINGAPORE: Singapore women continue to remain on the outside of top boardroom positions in the country, the country's ministry of state for community development, youth and sports said on Sunday. Minister Halimah Yacob urged companies to give more opportunities to women business leaders in order to enhance the overall economic climate for the country. She said that companies should be pushing to have at least 15 percent of women on boards in the next five years. She was speaking at the launch of the Singapore Board Gender Diversity Report, which highlights gender diversity in the boardrooms of listed companies in Singapore. While the percentage of women in boardrooms increased from 6.9 percent in 2010 to 7.3 percent last year, according to the report, Singapore, however, “still lags behind other Asian economies like Hong Kong and China, where the percentages stand at 9 percent and 8.5 percent respectively. The rate of increase for Singapore is also modest, compared to countries like Australia, which saw the proportion of its female board directors increase from 10.3 percent in 2010, to 13.8 percent last year. It comes as Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries continue to push female business leaders as a way of boosting local economies, which analysts and government officials say is vital to the success of local business. Singapore businesswomen told Bikyamasr.com that the government should follow the Malaysia government's model of boosting women in business. “I think this is a solid idea that can really go far in increasing women's access to top jobs,” Rohina Tao, a fashion consultant in Singapore, told Bikyamasr.com on Sunday. Malaysia believes that the future of the local economy can be developed and boosted by working with women entrepreneurs to grow their companies and start-ups in the country. One of those aspects, Kirkby International College (KIC) believes is to develop English language skills for women business leaders to develop their idea with an international feel. The college's President Bismillah Khatoon Abdul Kader said that her institution is collaborating with the Women Entrepreneurs Network Associations (WENA) in order to give office space, training facilities and take business English courses for its members. The goal, she said, was to enhance English language skills for women to have more opportunities in the business field. “Wena members are among the most talented and entrepreneurial group of women contributing to Malaysia's SMEs (small and medium enterprises). We need to help them to widen their business opportunities to reach wider markets. “They need practical support like space, soft loans and technical advice. “They also need to be able to talk and write about their products and services in a medium that can be understood internationally," she said in a statement. Earlier this month, the government launched a new export directory aimed at promoting women-owned businesses. The “Malaysia Women in Export Directory" hopes to develop new strategies for the female business owners to deliver their goods and services to international buyers and importers who are using Malaysia as a source. The new directory showcases 172 women-owned companies that have “succeeded in penetrating international markets, including 52 companies under the Women Exporters Development Program — a development program managed by Matrade that focuses on women entrepreneurs," said Matrade. “It is a new path that makes good business sense, to encourage women entrepreneurs to export their products," said Trade and Industry Deputy Minister Mukhriz Mahathir. It will also aim to help women “master the export game with all its trimmings such as logistics, shipping, branding, sales and marketing," he added. The directory will also provide opportunities for Matrade's officials to network with women-owned companies, women's associations, business councils and foreign embassies. For female business owners in the country, the move is having mixed reactions, but overall, it is being received with positiveness. “I think this will really help us understand and be able to have an equal footing in the business world after it has been dominated by men for so long," one business woman on the sidelines of the Matrade announcement told Bikyamasr.com. The majority of female-owned enterprises are focused in the services sector amounting to as much as 91.7 percent of their overall participation as small and medium enterprises, followed by manufacturing at 6.9 percent with the balance in construction, agriculture or mining, Mahathir added.
