ASEAN to upgrade workforce skill

ASEAN to upgrade workforce skill

KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): Southeast Asian labor ministers agreed on Thursday to upgrade the skills of their workforces to counter the U.S. economic slowdown and urged the ILO not to punish Myanmar over forced labor.

Ministers at their annual meeting here believed "multi- skilling" of workers would keep them employed amid recent downsizing by multinational corporations, said Malaysian Human Resources Minister Fong Chan Onn.

"Most countries feel that the most effective way is to upgrade skills, to further train and retrain our workers so that they have a broader set of skills to meet the challenges," he told a press conference.

Fong said the impact of the U.S. slowdown varied in each country, with Singapore reporting "serious concerns" due to its focus on technology.

"We will see how best we can cooperate in training and retraining so that our workers can then become much more multiskilled-based," he said.

Ministers hoped the impact would lessen towards the end of the year amid reports that the U.S. economy may recover by then.

The 10-member grouping, which will hold talks on Friday with officials from China, Japan and South Korea, would seek help from the three countries to counter the U.S. slowdown, Fong said. "China is a big market, Japan has a lot of expertise... we will see what they can do to help."

He said the region needed to "go full-scale" in moving towards becoming knowledge economies as its advantage of cheap labor has been eroded by the advent of new technologies.

Ministers also backed what they called Myanmar's move to ban forced labor and urged the International Labor Organization (ILO) not to impose punitive actions.

Last November, the ILO called on its members to review relations with Myanmar and to ensure that these ties did not help to continue or extend the practice of forced labor.

Fong said Myanmar's labor minister Maj. Gen. Tin Ngwe briefed the meeting and told it that the ILO had sent two technical missions to Myanmar.

"We feel that Myanmar has taken all the necessary legislative and administrative actions to eliminate forced labor and therefore ILO should consider that very positively and support those measures," Fong said. "Our appeal is for ILO not to take any punitive actions."

Ministers also reaffirmed their opposition to any moves by western countries and international organizations to link labor standards to financial aid or trade, Fong added.

Bad globalization

Earlier Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi said on Thursday that anti-globalization protests at international meetings will only get worse unless world leaders tackle the issues raised by demonstrators.

Speaking at the opening of a meeting of southeast Asian labor ministers, Abdullah said the region was still paying the social and economic costs of the 1997-1998 financial crisis.

He blamed a lack of control over highly leveraged financial funds, flows of "hot money" and overly rapid financial liberalization as factors at the heart of a crisis that debilitated many economies in the region.

"It was an example of bad globalization. It demonstrated how a liberalized, laissez-faire global economy could affect the lives of millions of people," he told delegates from the 10 ASEAN member countries.

"If issues that arose out of the crisis are not addressed more seriously, I am afraid that the revolt that has begun against globalization that resulted in violent demonstrations that began in Seattle, will grow bigger and bigger."

World Trade Organization talks in the U.S. west coast city of Seattle ended in acrimony and without agreement in December 1999 after days of street protests by non governmental organizations (NGOs) representing worker, environmental and social groups.

"The ragtag group of NGOs have become more organized, militant and knowledgeable about the issues. Their growing opposition is partly a reflection of the bad aspects of globalization," Abdullah said.

A slump in the Thai baht in 1997, fueled by rampant debt and a balance of payments crunch following years of rapid growth, triggered copy-cat crises among its neighbors.

Stocks markets and currencies dropped as foreign investors pulled out, leaving social upheaval and job losses in their wake.