A new program is set to be launched by the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) which encourages entrepreneurship and innovation among rural and urban women across the country, the organization announced in a conference in Beijing on June 16.
The program is in line with the central government's implementation of "public entrepreneurship and innovation" strategy and urges women to take advantage of the new trend of "Internet Plus" (the integration of the Internet and traditional industries through online platforms and IT).
Song Xiuyan, vice-president and first member of the Secretariat of the ACWF, said during a press conference that as a people's organization for the Party and conduit for women's work, the ACWF has taken great efforts to promote employment for women and startups.
Song said that its China Women's Development Foundation has offered small loans to nearly 4.65 million women, and raised the income of tens of millions of individuals and their families.
The foundation has also set up 8,100 practice bases for entrepreneurship and employment, which helped about 500,000 female college graduates realize their entrepreneurial ambitions.
It has also helped develop the hand-weaving industry, which provided employment to more than 10 million women in over 50,000 communities and villages and improved their lives.
Song stressed that the new "public entrepreneurship and innovation" strategy is expected to bring new opportunities for women in the fields of entrepreneurship and innovation.
Cui Yu, vice-president and member of the Secretariat of the ACWF, said that the foundation will focus on raising women's capabilities, especially on e-commerce that relate to women startups, and encourage the use of the Internet and big data in women entrepreneurship and employment practices.
Many local business enterprises expressed their support for the ACWF's new program of encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation. Tan Lixia, senior vice-president and chief financial officer of Haier Group, said at the conference that they will work together with the ACWF to establish a training base for Chinese female entrepreneurs, which will offer short-term guidance and lectures to women entrepreneurs.
Shi Dongwei, vice-president of Alibaba Group, said that Alibaba will also work together with women's federations to establish an Internet training system at different levels, as well as in creating a regulated qualification and a user evaluation system in its line of services.
Representatives from women's federations in Jilin, Shandong province, the Yiwu Industrial & Commercial College in Zhejiang Province, and Zhou Liangliang (a woman entrepreneur from Jiangsu Province who returned to China after studying abroad), shared their experiences in promoting women entrepreneurship and innovation.
More than 150 people, including government officials, officials from women's federations at different levels in Beijing, women entrepreneurs, college student representatives, and journalists from more than 30 media organizations, attended the conference.