The Indonesia-Japan Human Resources Forum 2023 was held in Jakarta on Tuesday.
"I fully support the cooperation between Japan and Indonesia in the employment field, which in this case is aimed at supporting Indonesia's human resources' capacity improvement programs to meet the competence (standards) abroad, especially Japan," Manpower Minister Ida Fauziyah stated here on Tuesday.
While opening the forum, she noted that since 1958, Indonesia and Japan have established several bilateral cooperation programs in the employment field, such as the Technical Intern Training Program (TITP), Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) program, and SSW program.
To this end, she expressed hope that through the forum, various forms of cooperation established between the two countries would be strengthened, especially regarding implementation of the SSW program.
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Japan's Ambassador to Indonesia, Kanasugi Kenji, stated that 2023 marks the 65th year anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
He noted that for the past three decades, the two countries have continued to carry out the exchange of human resources through bilateral cooperation schemes.
Kenji noted that Japan is currently experiencing an issue of aging population where the birth rate and elderly population are not balanced, thereby causing a labor shortage in the country.
To this end, since April 2019, the Japanese government had applied a new policy, namely receiving foreign workers through the SSW scheme.
He expressed hope that the various employment cooperation schemes would tackle employment problems in Japan and Indonesia.
The ambassador noted that Indonesian and Japanese human resources can play an active role in tackling social problems in the two countries and bring benefits to both nations.
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Translator: Zubi Mahrofi, Raka Adji
Editor: Jafar M Sidik
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