Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has emphasised on the important role played by women in the development of a nation.

This is after he attended the Friday prayers, where the sermon emphasised on equal rights, sharing responsibilities and obligations between a man and a woman without discrimination.

"The contributions of a woman is not only acknowledged within a family.

"But women are (also) the pulse of development for the nation and society," he tweeted.

The Najib administration has always worked towards increasing the employment rate for women and the number of policy-makers among women, including in the political arena.

In June, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Azalina Othman Said revealed that statistics showed that women's participation in the public sector's top management positions (Jusa C and above) was 37 percent.

She said the prime minister had set a 30 percent target of women’s participation at decision-making level in the public sector by 2009 while in the private sector the 30 percent target was by 2016.

"In the public sector, clearly the target has been achieved. However, in the private sector, so far, there is only 15.6 percent of women’s participation in the decision-making level," she had said.

Meanwhile, the prime minister, in the same month, announced that Malaysia made significant progress in the past six years to increase the number of women in the workforce and in decision-making role in the corporate sector.

He said this was due to government initiatives which sought to enhance the contribution of women to the economy and to promote greater inclusiveness in the workforce.

Najib also disclosed that Malaysia’s female labour participation rate (FLPR) climbed to 54.1% in 2015 from 46.8% in 2010.

"While this is just under the 55% target set for 2015, the 7.3% increase in FLPR has resulted in an additional 750,000 women entering the workforce. This is estimated to have contributed an additional 0.3 percentage points to GDP growth per annum," he said.