The Hanoitimes - Around 40 young people from 13 countries came together to share their experiences in education, entrepreneurship, employment and regional co-operation at the third ASEAN+3 Youth Caucus in Hanoi .
The participants included 10 countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as China , Japan and South Korea .
The Vietnam National Committee on Youth (VNCY) organised the caucus, which was held in Vietnam for the first time.
It was one of the sideline activities surrounding the 7th Ministerial Meeting on Youth of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (AMMY VII) that is officially scheduled tomorrow in Hanoi .
The caucus aimed to seek solutions for training skilled workers within the ASEAN Community by 2015, said Nguyen Hoang Hiep, secretary of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union.
Reika Tachikawa, 22, said: "The Japanese Government focused on promoting the quality of education as a solution to develop human resources, when Japan was in the same situation as Vietnam is now."
Supporting policies to help Vietnamese youth start business were necessary at this time, said Nguyen Tuyet Nhung, 23.
"Vietnamese youth often encounter difficulties when they want to start a business or begin a new job after leaving school, such as a lack of capital or interpersonal skills," she said.
Vietnamese youth, especially those living in rural and remote areas, actually needed more training courses on soft skills, Nhung said.
As many as 300,000 Vietnamese rural labourers would be trained to work in the modern agricultural sector – one of the national objectives for 2020, said Le Kim Dung, deputy director from the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs' International Co-operation Department.
Meanwhile, 600,000 others would partake in training courses to work in industry and service sectors instead of agriculture, she said.
One million labourers in rural areas would be trained to develop specific skills each year from now to 2020 with funding from the State Budget worth VND26 trillion (US$1.3 billion), Dung said.