Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan on September 19 urged northern central provinces to build more vocational training establishments to meet the increasing demand for high-quality human resources.

Addressing a conference, held in Ha Tinh province on September 19, to promote investment in human resource development for the northern central provinces, Deputy PM Nhan said the number of vocational training schools should be two to four times more than that of universities in the region, which comprises asked Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh and Quang Tri provinces.

The Deputy PM who is also Minister of Education and Training, said the training of local high-skilled workers is a major task to turn the northern central region into a centre for industry, commerce and tourism in the coming years.

He called on businesses to provide financial supports for training establishments and receive trainees for practice periods.

The northern central region has by now attracted 17 billion USD in registered capital from foreign investors, ranking third among the country’s eight key economic regions in term of foreign investment attraction.

A series of big domestic and foreign projects are being deployed in the region, prompting need for 391,000 skilled workers by 2015 and 550,000 by 2020.

During the conference, the Ha Tinh university and Formosa group of Taiwan have signed an agreement on metallurgy and business management training cooperation and the Republic of Korea’s Visionland company has inked a deal with the Vung Ang economic zone’s management board on the building of a university and a vocational school in the zone./.