King Wai Group fosters sustainable cross-border educational opportunities for Thai students
10 September 2019
Hong Kong SAR and Thailand have been closely collaborating on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In this connection, King Wai Group, a leading conglomerate in Hong Kong and mainland China, fully supports the Belt and Road Initiative in both business and charitable aspects. Noteworthy is the fact that the Hong Kong Scholarship Program for “Belt and Road” Students from Thailand, which was established by Dr. King Wai Chan, Founder and Chairman of King Wai Group, King Wai Group (Thailand) and Hong Kong China Chamber of Commerce, has been successfully implemented over the past two years.
Under the program, a scholarship of up to HK$1.7 million per student will be offered annually to ten outstanding (Thai) students (per year). Students would enroll in undergraduate program of publicly funded educational institutions in Hong Kong for three academic years. Currently, thirty outstanding students from Thailand are pursuing undergraduate studies among different universities in Hong Kong. These include the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong Baptist University and City University of Hong Kong.
Chairman of the King Wai Insurance, Mr. Antonio Hang Tat Chan hosted the commemorative ceremony on September 10, 2019 to celebrate the successful implementation of the Hong Kong Scholarship Program. The event was attended by Mrs. Nuttha Soontrapa, Acting Consul-General of Thailand, Mr. Kevin Yeung, Hong Kong Secretary for Education, representatives from Hong Kong’s renowned universities, distinguished guests and all students who were awarded the scholarships.
In his welcome remarks, Mr. Chan said, “This event is to celebrate the success of the Third-Year Belt and Road Scholarship Program. Besides providing scholarships to students, there will be more that we can do. We are constantly searching for different ways and different platforms to help. We are doing this because we want to build a momentum, a momentum to help our society.” And according to the statement made by Mr. Yeung, Hong Kong Secretary for Education, thanks to King Wai Group’s educational support, the number of Thai students enrolling in local post-secondary educational institutions significantly rose by 82% to 69 students in the 2018/19 academic year. Hong Kong hopes to achieve further internationalization in the higher education sector by making available a range of scholarships to outstanding international students for their studies and stay in the territory.”
In addition, Mrs. Nuttha Soontrapa, Acting Consul-General of Thailand, expressed her appreciation to King Wai Group for its great educational support that also provided the Thai scholars with an opportunity to serve as Thailand’s cultural ambassadors. They played an importantly role of strengthening the people-to-people bonds between Thailand and Hong Kong SAR.
Not less importantly, the scholarship program also helped open a great opportunity for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. At the event, several scholars shared their stories of how the program helped lighten their financial burdens. One of them was a student of Karen descent who grew up in a refugee camp in Thailand. Currently, she studies in journalism at Hong Kong Baptist University. She said, “Many young people resort to hopelessness at thoughts of being unable to afford further education, and many do give up searching for sources of help. I remain grateful to the Belt and Road Scholarship present here today, for negating this mystery, for letting students across the country know that if they desire to pursue higher education, hardly will financial matters restrain them.”
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