Vice-Chairwoman of China's National Working Committee on Children and Women, Hong Tianhui, said on Sunday that the country was committed to raising women's economic status. 

China was dedicated to the protection of women's rights and raising their economic status by cooperation with enterprises, Hong told Xinhua on the sidelines of the 2006 Global Women Summit which was opened Saturday in the Egyptian capital of Cairo.

Hong attributed China's significant achievements in this field to its constant efforts to realize gender equality.

China was doing its utmost to ensure women were treated fairly by employers when vacancies existed, that economic resources were shared fairly and that social progress was made by females. This had come about since China hosted the fourth UN women's conference in 1995 in Beijing, added Hong. 

During a pre-summit ministerial roundtable meeting on Saturday, Hong told 43 other participants that China had taken three measures to raise women's economic status including implementation of favorable policies to support women entrepreneurship, provision of financial and technological support for women who want to set up their own business and developing women's potential to actually secure employment. 

According to Hong more and more Chinese women have begun to set up their own enterprises and women in business now account for some 20 percent of the country's entrepreneurs.

She said China would continue to narrow the gap between men and women in possession of development resources and income distribution as the world's most populous country was building a wealthy society.

The three-day summit, called "the Davos for Women" in reference to the male-dominated annual economic forum, was attended by around 900 leading women from 88 countries and regions.

This year's summit, the 16th since it first met in Canada's Montreal in 1990, drew a record number of delegates. Led by Hong, China sent a 35-member delegation to the summit.

(Xinhua News Agency June 12, 2006)