Shipping Services Fiji chairwoman Seruwaia Hong-Tiy received the “outstanding lifetime achievement” award on Wednesday during the International Women in Maritime Day celebration in Suva.
“We have been unsung heroes for a long time but this is recognition for women in maritime,” she said.
The award highlighted a leading woman figure that had made an outstanding contribution to the shipping and maritime industry.
She said along with her husband, they started Shipping Services Fiji Ltd in 1992 which had grown and provided great service to the Fijian economy via their liner principal Maersk Line.
“The support from the men in my life was great, especially my late husband,” she said.
“Women in maritime are the most hardworking but of course the men make way for them to enter the arena of work and seamanship.
“We should never forget the support that the men give for the seafarers and women in vessels going out to the world, regionally and locally.”
Mrs Hong-Tiy, who is over 70 years old and hails from Nadroga, had once served as the health minister under Sitiveni Rabuka’s SVT government.
“I was in health, I was trained away in New Zealand and I was a physiotherapist and then over the years we had started the company and that’s also when I became the minister for health for a while until I went back to the company for good.”
