In recent years, Nghe An province has issued a policy of encouraging and attracting the central companies and the companies of other provinces specialised in labour export to work in the province. In 2004, Nghe An invited 8 additional enterprises outside the province, raising the number of labour-export enterprises at the locality to 33. Many of these enterprises have their representative offices in the province. The operation of diversified labour export enterprises there has created favourable conditions whereby not only provincial labourers can access the market but suppliers as well. Besides stable markets, the businesses engaged in the labour export programmes have expanded to some new markets that provide high incomes and stable jobs like Arabia, South Korea and Japan.
The leading enterprise in labour export is the Consultancy and Labour Export Supply Company of Nghe An. In order that sufficient labour sources meet export requirements, the company has signed a contract with the People’s Committees of communes in Nam Dan, Yen Thanh, Nghi Loc and Que Phong districts. Working abroad under the guarantee of local authorities, people feel safer. Furthermore, the commune authorities still act as guarantors on the loans given to export labourers by the bank. As a result, the commune has developed a movement for attracting more people to work abroad.
After recruiting labourers, the Consultancy and Labour Export Supply Company of Nghe An provides foreign langue training and vocational orientation education at the company or at local vocational training centres. Good preparation of labour sources ensures stable labour supply as well as the labour quality and limits the rate of contract breaches.
In 2004 and the first six months of 2005, the company sent nearly 850 labourers to work under contracts in many countries, mainly in Taiwan: 700 people, Malaysia: 100 and Dubai (Arabia): 50. According to the signed contracts, the working term abroad is from 2 to 3 years with the income per capita of US$200 – 300 per month. In some markets like Taiwan, the income even goes up to US$800- 900 US$/person/month.
Thanks to the achievement in labour export, the quantity of earned foreign currencies is high. According to the data given by the Sate Bank of Vietnam, Nghe An Branch, from this official export, in 2004, labourers remitted US$28 million from abroad. This does not include the many millions of US Dollars, sent by them through other channels.
According to the source from the Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, up to now, the whole province has 20,146 labourers working in foreign countries. Noticeably, among the total provincial export turnover of US$25.3 million, expected to be reached in the first quarter of 2005, the labour export earned about US$10 million and made up nearly 40 percent. In the first 6 months of 2005, when nearly half of export enterprises in Nghe An had no export turnover, US$10 million is not a small figure. Therefore, it is not difficult to fulfil the yearly plan of US$20 million set out for labour export. There is even a possibility of exceeding the planned target.
Kim Dung