Markham spending $19,500 to send 3 people to conference in Asia

World Hakka Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is lead-up to Markham hosting in 2021

Yorkregion.com
April 3, 2019
Tim Kelly

The City of Markham will spend up to $19,500 and send a three-person team to to the World Hakka Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia this fall.

Mayor Frank Scarpitti, Regional Coun. Joe Li and Sandra Tam, Markham’s senior business development officer will attend the five-day conference from Oct. 16-21.

While the trip still has to be approved at a full council meeting, it got approval at development services committee Monday, April 1.

The trio will represent the town at the 30th conference, held every two years, as part of the preparation for when Markham hosts the massive event in late 2021.

Markham mayor hits high tech trail in Portugal for business clients
Markham beat out Sydney, London and Guangzhou, China, in 2017 to earn the right to host the 2021 conference.

Stephen Chait, Markham’s director of economic growth, culture and entrepreneurship, explained the value of spending nearly $20,000 of taxpayer’s money to attend the conference in Southeast Asia this fall.

“Meetings are underway now and ideas are being generated for this fall’s trip. We will have presentation materials ready for the time on the ground during the three or four days the mayor, regional councillor Li are spending in meetings,” said Chait.

Ward 7 Coun. Khaled Usman said the case for international trips was clear.

“If we don’t present Markham to places like China, Malaysia and Europe, how else will we get the trade to come here?”

Chait mentioned there are some 15,000 members of the Hakka community -- described by Chait as ethnic Chinese living in other countries like Singapore and especially in India -- living in Markham.

Li, who grew up in the huge eastern Indian city of Kolkata, is a member of the Hakka community and has received much of the credit for being the driving force behind besting much larger cities to land the 2021 World Hakka Conference.

“Joe Li was the best ambassador at the Hakka conference two years ago,” Regional Coun. Jack Heath said.