•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   

Kupang. East Nusa Tenggara plans to cooperate with neighboring East Timor in manpower initiatives, an East Timorese official said here on Wednesday.

“We have seriously discussed our plan to cooperate in the manpower sector with the East Nusa Tenggara provincial administration, and will sign a memorandum of understanding for the cooperation on Dec. 20 this year,” Consul-General Caetano De Sousa Guterres said.

East Timor’s secretary for manpower, Bendito Freitas, and minister for youth and sports, Miguil Mentelu, last month visited Kupang and had touched on the matter, he added.

The two ministers visited on Oct. 24 with a delegation from East Timor’s parliament to discuss cooperation on manpower and to obtain firsthand information about worker training in the provincial capital.

According to Gutteres, East Timor was interested in recruitment procedures in East Nusa Tenggara and wanted to cooperate more in that field.

Although the agreement was yet to be fleshed out, he said East Timorese workers could realistically already be sent for job training in Kupang.

Gutteres said Dili was keen to send its workers abroad. “The East Timor government will seek jobs in other countries and, if our workers have undergone the job training in Kupang, they will be sent to other countries in need of workers,” he said.

Separately, East Timor is planning to send its athletes to Kupang to help celebrate the province’s 51st anniversary on Dec. 20.

Gutteres said that East Timor’s participation in the friendly competitions held during the anniversary celebrations would help bring the neighbors closer together.



Antara