VietNamNet Bridge – Poor awareness and infrastructure are stymieing the implementation of a national programme to send people from disadvantaged areas abroad as guest workers.

People apply for work overseas in the central province of Quang Tri. More investment is needed to encourage people from poor areas to work overseas. (Photo: VNS)

Around 5,500 people from all over the country have been sent to work overseas since Project 71 was launched two years ago to eliminate poverty, according to statistics from the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

More than 1,000 have benefited this year, of whom 95 per cent are poor and ethic minority people.

However, low awareness of the programme among disadvantaged people and the difficulty in travelling around remote and mountainous areas are major hurdles.

Nghe An, one of the poorest provinces in the central region, has sent the largest number of people abroad under the programme, according to its Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (DoLISA).

More than 43,000 people from Nghe An now work overseas, mostly in Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, and the Middle East.

This helped advance the province's hunger and poverty elimination efforts, DoLISA said. Around US$90-95 million, earned by its overseas workers, have been sent to Nghe An through commercial banks each year.

Lao Cai in the northern mountains, where the poverty rate is 43 per cent, is another province to implement Project 71 strongly, sending more than 200 people from the three poorest districts overseas in the first half of this year.

"Most of the people working overseas have repaid their bank loans and improved their families' business," said Trinh Quang Chinh, head of the province DoLISA.

But authorities said they were unable to find high-quality human resources for the programme since most ethnic people were poorly educated and could not meet the requirements of demanding markets like Japan and South Korea.

"The ethnic people have limited knowledge of the Government's policies and it is not easy to change their fear of working overseas," Chinh said, adding that not many applied for foreign jobs.

The difficulty in travelling in the mountainous province was also a factor.

"It [difficulty in travel] is the main reason why information about the programme has not been fully disseminated to people living in distant villages," Chinh said, adding that the lack of representatives from labour companies to counsel people was another problem.

To encourage people to join the programme, DoLISA in central Khanh Hoa Province has begun to provide a subsidy of VND6 million per applicant to certain categories of applicants from this month.

It is to help cover their foreign language training, travel, and other expenses like getting a visa and doing health checks.

The beneficiaries include people who contributed to the country's development, children of war invalids and martyrs, poor people, ethnic minorities, and residents of mountainous areas.

With the Government committed to continuing with policies to promote labour export from poor localities, these provinces have an incentive to implement the project better.

The Government is also expected to step up investment, subsidies, and other financial assistance for poor people to encourage them to apply for work abroad.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News