Thailand signs 3 pacts with Myanmar to enhance labor cooperation

Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha and Aung San Suu Kyi, the visiting State Counselor of Myanmar Friday witnessed the signing ceremony of three documents of labor cooperation here.

The three documents, namely Agreement on Cross Border between Thailand and Myanmar, Memorandum of Understanding on Labor Cooperation and Agreement on Employment of Workers, will lay a solid foundation for both sides to enhance labor cooperation, said Prayut in a joint press conference with Suu Kyi after the signing ceremony.

Around 3 million Myanmar migrants work in Thailand, and some of them are undocumented and thus vulnerable to exploitation, rights group here said earlier.

Prayut said he and Suu Kyi agreed that Thai private sectors and Myanmar migrant workers are "highly interdependent" and the Thai government has made efforts to take care of these Myanmar workers with concrete initiatives for them, such as 1694 hotline, Online Complaint System for workers to file complaints and one stop service center established in 10 provinces.

Aung San Suu Kyi expressed gratitude to the Thai government for what had been done for Myanmar nationals working here, and she also said that she want to take them home.

"What we want is that all people displaced from our country should come back to us and should come back to the kind of conditions which they will never want to move again," Suu Kyi said.

To achieve this goal, according to her, they need to do a lot of work to offer homes, schools, hospitals, and most important, work, "Job creation is of greatest importance for our country." Suu Kyi said.

Both leaders talked about the economic cooperation between the two country to create more jobs, while Prayut gave more details by mentioning the Dawei Special Economic Zone of Myanmar, a Thai-Myanmar project which he said they both agreed that it should be resumed and can create ten thousands of jobs and contribute to regional connectivity after its completion.

They also mentioned the importance of both countries to engage in ASEAN, while Suu Kyi emphasized that Myanmar, though a young member of ASEAN, has confident to catch up with the other members to go forward together

source : xinhua