On the morning of September 6, the periodical meeting was held with the Ministry of Social Welfare and Labour (MSWL) of Mongolia. JITCO explained about the changes in number of accepted technical intern trainees and about data including yearly data and data by profession for returnees. MSWL passed along questions and requests from the sending organizations. Furthermore, both sides confirmed the necessity for support to help returnees find employment.

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  Periodical meeting with MSWL

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  Seminar for sending organizations

In the morning the next day, September 7, a seminar for sending organizations was held in cooperation from MSWL, with 17 guests from 12 accredited sending organizations attending. At the seminar, JITCO explained about the changes and considerations of the program revision, and responded to the questions from guests. The questions included topics such as procedures for municipal tax payments and penalties for run-away technical intern trainees.

JITCO used the opportunity from this visit to observe locations in Mongolia where former technical intern trainees are at work.

On the afternoon of September 5, JITCO representatives visited two local subsidiary companies created in Mongolia by accepting corporations in Japan, and interviews were held with two former technical intern trainees who are entrusted with the position of president at each company.
With the support of the president of the accepting corporation, one former technical intern trainee established a child company (aluminum processing company) as a local subsidiary company of the accepting corporation. Machinery used during the technical intern training was transferred from Japan, and using the materials imported through the parent company, the child company processes the materials according to the included specifications written in Japanese and exports the processed product back to Japan. Maintenance of the equipment is primarily performed locally by the Mongolian child company, although if there is a particularly difficult problem, the child company makes a maintenance request to the parent company in Japan for a technician to come over. In addition to the metal processing company, a manufacturing company for solar panels and a sales company for photocopiers have been established as affiliated companies.
The solar panel manufacturing company installed a new set of manufacturing equipment, created a trial product in May of this year, and submitted the trial product to a specialized organization to check product quality. The president, a former technical intern trainee, was a technical supervisor at the above-mentioned metal processing company. Currently, most of the employees are graduates of Mongolia’s renewable energy university. There are apparently no other companies in Mongolia manufacturing solar panels for a commercial base.

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  Observation of the factory (metal processing)

On the afternoon of September 6, JITCO representatives also visited a bakery opened by a former technical intern trainee in cooperation with the accepting corporation and interviewed the former technical intern trainee.
The former technical intern trainee trained at a corporation that manufactured bread-making machines, but developed interest in Japanese sweet breads and became interested in manufacturing and selling these breads after returning to Mongolia. With the cooperation of the accepting corporation and organization, the former technical intern trainee learned the skills behind the manufacture of Japanese sweet breads during the training period. Currently, sales are growing favorably and there are plans to expand into a second and third shop. The bakery is also registered as a distributor of the bread manufacturing machines from the accepting corporation. Therefore the shop is completely equipped with a full set of the bread manufacturing machine and related equipment, and this equipment is used on location to bake the bread for sale.

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  View of the inside