KATHMANDU: The Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) has dispatched a group of five people for industrial training to Japan.

According to the agreement signed on December 3, 2003, between the Ministry of Labour and Transport Management (MoLTM) and Japan International Training Cooperation Organisation (JITCO), this is the second batch of trainees. FNCCI was commissioned the duty of selecting trainees based on oral and practical tests. The selected trainees were trained in Japanese culture and language.

Among the five, three will be trained in welding and the other two will be taught metal casting for the next three years in Japan’s Accepting Organisation. The selected ones are Shanti Prasad Devkota of Kaski, Sudip Karki and Dwarika Prasad Chaudhari of Rupandehi, Dipak Barahi of Lalitpur and Khom Raj Rai of Sunsari.

FNCCI has already sent six women trainees and will be sending another women’s group next month. Meanwhile, the already selected 20 women and 16 men are learning the culture and language of Japan as a preparation. Japan is putting Nepal, Bangladesh and Mongolia in its prioritised source destinations in a bid to gradually lessen the dependence on Chinese workers as industrial trainees and interns in Japanese enterprises

Japan wanted to diversify sources of workers as they have been facing problems due to high dependency on a single country - China. Japanese industrial enterprises are receiving a total of 50,000 workers annually and 80 per cent of them are from China.