ACCCIM 4th Youths Conference

Opening Speech by Tan Sri William Cheng Heng Jem, President of ACCCIM

1.00 p.m. 24th June 2011 Evergreen Laurel Hotel Penang

A very good afternoon to everyone of you here,

I would like to thank the Youth Committee of Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerce for inviting me to officiate the opening of today’s Youth Conference. This gives me an opportunity to interact with all the delegates of Youth Committees from all over the country.

Ladies and gentlemen,

As at today, 12 of the 17 constituent chambers of ACCCIM, have set up Youth Committee since the initial establishment of Youth Committee by Klang CCCI in 2004. This provides a platform for the young entrepreneurs to interact and perform, and enable the chambers recruit new blood and nurture future leadership for the chambers of commerce. To further enhance the linkage within Youth Committees of constituent chambers, ACCCIM has appointed Dato’ Low Kian Chuan, the deputy secretary general, as the chief coordinator. Following this appointment, two meetings have been conducted in May and June this year respectively to discuss the role and activities of Youth Committee.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Young entrepreneurs, who are dynamic and emerging, possess the venturing spirit as a reinforcement to promote the country’s economic growth. As a platform to unite the young entrepreneurs, the Youth Committees will need to strengthen the interaction network among themselves and to encourage more talented young entrepreneurs to join in. As mentioned earlier, this is the platform for young entrepreneur to interact and perform. It is therefore pertinent create favourable conditions, to organise special forums by inviting experts and professionals from various sectors to lecture and assist members to better understand government policies and assistance programmes and so on. Through continuous learning, the young entrepreneurs will be able to monitor the changes in the market and improve their enterprises as well as to tap on new business opportunities.

In addition, the Youth Committees should also encourage their members to actively involve in innovation and R&D industries. In this globalised world economy, and implementation of various free trade zones, the market competition has become more stern. Young entrepreneurs must maintain keen sense of market’s needs, constantly enhance creativity and innovation skills to develop products or technologies with own intellectual property rights, so as to improve the core competitiveness of their businesses. Members of Youth Committee will learn from each other through interaction and sharing, to achieve the corporate-level cooperation and even combine each other’s strengths to enhance business development.

Of course, the Youth Committees should take also this opportunity to educate the young entrepreneurs to undertake their corporate social responsibilities besides developing and exploring new markets and business opportunities. They should contribute to the community and society by participating in public welfare activities. Through these activities, the Youth Committees will be able to demonstrate that young entrepreneurs are caring and the organisations themselves are a distinct brand name as a coalition of outstanding young entrepreneurs.

Ladies and gentlemen,

This is the 4th ACCCIM Youth Conference but this is the first time it is being organised concurrently with Annual General Meeting of ACCCIM. ACCCIM hopes that members of Youth Committees from Constituent Chambers would participate more actively in ACCCIM, including involvement in various specific working committees, and even participating in the organising works of ACCCIM events and functions. The dynamic and young entrepreneurs can contribute their strength and creativity and assist ACCCIM to provide better quality services to members and Chinese Community as well as to contribute to our country’s economic transformation plan to achieve the goal as a high-income nation.

I hereby declare the ACCCIM 4th Youth Conference open.

Thank you.