MoLISA head Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and her Lao counterpart Onchan Thammavong are meeting in the central coast city of Da Nang for a two-day ministerial conference on labour cooperation.

The conference, which will wrap up on Aug. 15, concluded that labour cooperation between Vietnam and Laos has actively contributed to the development of the two countries’ special friendship and promoted bilateral economic cooperation programmes.

It said that accelerating the development and raising the efficiency of labour ties plays a significant role in meeting the human resource demands of investment cooperation projects.

The participants at the conference reached consensus on a number of measures to promote bilateral labour ties which mainly focus on building comprehensive bilateral cooperation and expanding and raising the effectiveness of related programmes.

They also emphasised the necessity for the two countries’ relevant agencies to disseminate agreements reached between their governments and localities relating to labour management policies and regulations.

“Both sides need to discuss supplementing and amending a number of articles for submission to their Governments to get them in line with their legal systems and the development of bilateral economic cooperation,” they said.

According to the Vietnamese Ministry of Labour, War, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA), Vietnamese workers in Laos are mainly employed in investment cooperation projects and cooperation programmes for bordering provinces, and those working under seasonal employment contracts.

Around 15,000 Vietnamese workers and technicians are working in Laos for cooperative projects between the two sides, in both the public and private sectors. So far, 150 Vietnamese businesses and economic organisations are invested in or have won bidding contracts in Laos . The Lao Government has licensed 174 Vietnam-invested projects totalling almost 900 million USD. These projects are focused on construction, transportation, forestry and hydro-electricity./.