梁劉柔芬

English

Sophie Leung Lau Yau-fun is a Hong Kong textile and garment entrepreneur and former member of the Legislative Council. Born in Macau in 1945 with family roots in Chaoyang, Guangdong, she was educated in the United States at the University of Illinois. With her husband Brian Leung Hung-tak she founded a fashion company that manufactured and distributed casual wear and garments, reaching overseas markets, and became a prominent businesswoman in the trade. From 1989 she was appointed to the Hong Kong Textiles Advisory Committee and served as a consultant on the government's textile policy for eighteen years until 2007; in 1990 she joined a delegation to Washington as an adviser for the Hong Kong-United States textile quota negotiations. She has done much to promote the textile and garment industry and to advance its interests, long representing the sector in advising the government on trade policy, quota arrangements and industrial upgrading. After leaving the Liberal Party in 2008 she joined other business legislators in forming Economic Synergy and continued to serve as an industry representative. In 1997 she was returned to the Provisional Legislative Council and from 1998 to 2012 served in the Legislative Council for the textile and garment functional constituency, succeeding Leung Yiu-chung, who had held the seat for the 'New Nine' groups; she sat first with the Liberal Party and after 2008 with the Economic Synergy group, and stepped down in 2012. She has also chaired the governing committee of Castle Peak Hospital and sat on the council and court of Hong Kong Baptist University. In 2011 she was appointed the founding chairperson of the Women's Commission, set up to promote the well-being and interests of women in Hong Kong. From 2003 to 2018 she was a deputy to the National People's Congress for Hong Kong, serving the tenth, eleventh and twelfth terms. She has a daughter, Nisa Leung Wing-yu. She has received the OBE and the Gold Bauhinia Star and is a Justice of the Peace.