October 29, 2020

The 26th ASEAN Labour Ministers Meeting and the 11th ASEAN Plus Three Labour Ministers Meeting were held via videoconferencing yesterday morning. The virtual session was participated by Union Minister for Labour, Immigration and Population U Thein Swe, the Directors-General, other officials of Myanmar, Labour Ministers of ASEAN nations, Labour Ministers of the ASEAN Plus Three nations (China, Japan and South Korea), and Secretary-General of ASEAN Dato Lim Jock Hoi.

The theme of the meeting was “Promoting ASEAN Workers for Competitiveness, Resilience, and Agility on the Future of Work”.

According to a report of the World Economic Forum, ASEAN experienced an unequal level of competitiveness and large productivity gap. The participants discussed improving skills and competitiveness of ASEAN workers, ways to overcome challenges posed by epidemics, natural disasters and other crises and issues related to preparation for enhancing skills that will be needed in the future.

During the virtual meeting, Myanmar Union Minister U Thein Swe said that the theme “Promoting ASEAN Workers for Competitiveness, Resilience, and Agility on the Future of Work” is intended to find solutions for the fourth industrial revolution that the world is facing and to overcome the challenges related to the COVID-19 impacts. The Union Minister said that rapid transformation into technology-based businesses is a great challenge for Myanmar.

He pointed out that COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the nature of the businesses and the “digital platform” has become a basic need for the labour market. He highlighted the need to invest in digital infrastructure and the need to help the workers to acquire new necessary skills in order to promote the competitiveness of workers in digitalization.

He said that social meetings are essential in finding solutions for the development of the labour and industrial sectors, so Myanmar has been holding tripartite meetings in which the government, employers and employees are involved, as needed. He said that strong enthusiasm and continuous efforts of member nations would overcome any challenge. The participants, including officials from China, Japan and South Korea, discussed the situation of workers and jobs affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. —MNA (Translated by Maung Maung Swe)