On July 17, 2013, JITCO held discussions with the Laos Ministry of Labour & Social Welfare (MLSW) Department of Skills Development and Employment (DSDE).

As the Japanese economy is finally recovering, JITCO has begun receiving more and more inquiries from Laos about acceptance. The organization told Laotian officials that it wanted to discuss its requests as a sending country, as well as the approval status of its sending organizations and a sending framework for non-agricultural fields. In addition, they told the officials that the disappearance rate is high these days and needs improvement, and they called for greater enrichment of Japanese language education.

The DSDE expressed its appreciation to JITCO for the cooperative relationship thus far and commented that in light of the recovery of the Japanese economy, it wanted to further expand its sending efforts. As for the disappearances, the DSDE said it was necessary to resolve the problem in cooperation with the supervising organizations, and it commented that it also wanted to work at enriching consideration and allowances for family members left at home as well as advance education for technical intern trainees.

After the discussion with the DSDE, JITCO officials paid a courtesy call to the vice-minister of the Laos MLSW.

The vice minister welcomed the JITCO delegation’s visit and said there were a lot of people in Laos who were interested in Japan’s technical intern training. He indicated that the government also wanted to further expand the country’s sending, so if there were problems on the operational front, it would like to resolve them.

JITCO expressed its anticipation that acceptances from Laos would grow further. It said the Laotian technical intern trainees in the agricultural field had a good reputation, so if they could get the opportunity they would likely proceed with acceptance in other fields as well. It also communicated the point that it wanted to continue with the program in a way so as not to destroy the good reputation that has been cultivated thus far. It said that an improvement in Japanese language ability is important for that, and it asked the government to continue to instruct sending organizations in that regard. After that, with DSDE representatives in attendance, JITCO held interviews in an MLSW meeting room with three approved sending organizations.

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  Back left: Phouvanh Chanthavong, Director General of DSDE

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  Right: Bounkong Vasoukanh, Vice Minister of MLSW