 Well, good afternoon everyone. My name is Aiko Doden, senior commentator at NHK, Japan Broadcasting Corporation, and I will be the moderator for this session. Now our sessions topic is taking Myanmar to work. The session will be recorded and broadcast worldwide on NHK World TV on Saturday, June 15. It can also be watched online at the time of the broadcast. The video of this session will also be available on the World Economic Forum website after NHK World broadcast. As I said, the session will be recorded, so please do take your seat and turn off your mobile phones and no flashlights during the recording. We will start the recording shortly. The country began its move towards democratisation. Myanmar is now changing rapidly. Western sanctions have largely been lifted and economic reforms have been undertaken. And last year's World Economic Forum on East Asia, Aung San Suu Kyi made an appeal. Job creation is extremely important in Burma. And together with job creation must go training. The kind of training that will enable our unemployed young to take up jobs. Myanmar has a population of 60 million. Although literacy is high, the country's GDP per capita is one of the lowest in Southeast Asia. And narrowing the poverty gap is a critical issue. The world has high hopes for reliable labour coming from Myanmar. But the country needs to nurture people with skills adapted to modern industry. We discuss what kind of human resource development is needed in Myanmar to create sustainable growth there. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Asian Voices. I'm Ico Doden. Thank you for joining this NHK World TV discussion taking Myanmar to work. It has been two years since the recent move towards democracy began in 2011. To ensure further reform and solidify change, Myanmar needs the right people to continue the right development. Today, we are going to hold the discussion about the issues Myanmar faces and how companies entering the market here, as well as the international community, might help to find keys to solving these issues. Well, let me introduce our panellist to you. From Myanmar, we have Do Aung San Suu Kyi. Perhaps she needs no introduction, but she is a long time leader of democracy movements in Myanmar. And the chairperson of the National League for Democracy, or NLD. She's also a member of Myanmar's parliament. And from India, we have Subramanian Ramadurai. He's an advisor to the Prime Minister in India's National Skills Development Council, providing guidance on career education at the national level. Mr Ramadurai is also the vice chairman of Tata Consultancy Services, which provides IT services and consulting worldwide. And from the Philippines, we have Jaime Augusto Zobelde Ayala, chairman and CEO of the Ayala Corporation. Ayala Corporation is one of the largest business groups in the Philippines founded in 1834. Ayala has investments in the real estate, banking, telecom, water, automotive, electronics and outsourcing industries. From Japan, we have Hiroto Alakawa, vice president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, or JICA. JICA has been actively supporting Myanmar for many years as Japan's aid organisation in areas as public health, education and human resource development. And from Singapore, we have Annie Koh, vice president of the Office of Business Development and External Relations at Singapore Management University. Her office explores ways to link different kinds of institutions such as universities, corporations and government offices. But thank you all for joining the discussion today. Well, this session is titled, Taking Myanmar to Work. It is about creating jobs, about making people employable, making the right match between talents and jobs to bring about sustainable and inclusive growth in Myanmar. And the question is how? Well, before we address these questions, Dewan Sen Suci, let me begin by asking you a couple of questions. You have recently said in Yangon that the last three years so no tangible changes, especially in the area of rule of law and the peace process. Are you somewhat taken aback by the ministers or business delegations parading into Myanmar one after the other? They seem to have decided that the change is happening and that the time to do business has finally arrived. You have said before that the caution is in order when it comes to doing business in Myanmar. Are you still of the same view when you say at the same time change is needed? I think it's the businesses which are of that view now because as I said earlier, there are more investigations than solid investment. I think you will find that investments certainly don't follow the visits of businessmen. So the reason why I think there is hesitancy is exactly because of what I talked about before, rule of law. The concerns are now I find basically rule of law and infrastructure. These are the two constraints against actual investment. Yes, they come here to see if the time is right for investment and they certainly see this country as a tremendous possibility as having tremendous potential. But the investments are certainly not drawing in for these reasons. They are not certain about the position of rule of law and the lack of infrastructure is too overwhelming. Do you have often spoken about the Myanmar's need for its people to be trained and the need for more jobs to be created? Everything has to happen very quickly. Results have to be produced as quickly as possible. In what way creating jobs and the capacity building of the Myanmar people themselves crucial in the context of Myanmar's democratisation? First of all, of course, you've got to remember that our country has suffered from a very bad education system for many decades. So that are young people and not so young people because there are many in their 40s who are really not equipped to get gainful employment. That is because of our poor education system. So what we need is both education and jobs. So what it amounts to is that we have to concentrate on vocational training and on the job training. Because people in their 40s, it's not easy for them to go back to school of any kind, whether it's vocational school or non-formal education. So they need to be trained on the job because they need jobs. So we want to encourage the kind of investment which will bring both work and skills to our country. So that is to say on the job training. And of course we want as much support as possible for vocational training programmes. I think Doan Sansuchi has articulated for us some of the main challenges that Myanmar faces. So now on to how can business contribute to human capital development in Myanmar. A rosy picture shows according to an ADB estimate. Myanmar's GDP grows rising to 6.7% in the fiscal year 2014. Another more recent analysis predicts that Myanmar's economy can quadruple to over $200 billion by the year 2030. Myanmar is rich in natural resources and is blessed with abundant working age, population age between 15 and 64. Of about 46 billion. But Myanmar is also a country with per capita GDP of approximately about $800, only 170th of that of Singapore. So Mr Ramadurai, Tata consultancy services is expanding IT services globally. You have visited Myanmar five times, I understand already. How do you position Myanmar in your global strategy? How would you create jobs and make people employable? I think it's a great question and how Aung San Suu Kyi very correctly said that any skill or any training you provide must result in jobs. Skilling for the sake of skilling is just not acceptable because a skilled worker with no job is bigger problem than unskilled unemployed. I think the vocational education is another one which is absolutely critical. And when we look at the Tata group, we look at it in terms of building ground up starting from the scratch where recruitment from the colleges or recruitment from any polytechnics and then training them where the program of apprenticeship is extremely important. On the job training followed by the theoretical foundations are exceptionally extremely necessary and we need to be completely committed to it. More importantly what we want to do it in Myanmar is to set up with the Government of India's help, a Myanmar Institute of Information Technology in Mandalay. We are already implementing it in terms of starting the first batch of students with classes in September of this year. Students would go to Bangalore and then come here. In addition we are going to be training the trainers and then training the students for the undergraduate program of four years. Over a period of four to five years we want to scale up to about a thousand students per year and this will be one of the world class institution which can be used as a benchmark. I think the schooling system has to address the vocational education because unless you start the kids early with hands-on experience, the dexterity, the ability to learn a new trade, you cannot at the age of 40 or 40 plus bring them into the vocational stream. Third from a policy perspective what we are trying to do in India which is possible on a global basis also it's happening is a national skills framework which essentially means this is the kind of framework for a particular trade and then the competency level which gives you the diploma or the certification to get a job. The private sector must be a part of this journey and must provide the jobs and apprenticeship programs. That's the way I would put it and that's what we are committed to. In other words, Myanmar is in need of human resources to cope with the change that is happening at every level. Absolutely. It's not just in one level but across the system. Let me go on to Mr Ayala. Given your experience in the Philippines, how do you think the business can contribute to the development of human capital in Myanmar? What skills are needed in your view? In the Philippines, we have a population of getting close to 100 million people, the vast majority of which are really can be considered under the youth sector. Our problems are very similar to the ones that Madam Asasushi has made reference to and our friend from India. I think increasingly the way we view it in our country is that if we don't address the needs of this growing population, we have one of the highest growth rates, population growth rates in Asia. We will not be faced with the potential demographic dividend that we should be looking for. So the key is how to get the youth employed. I echo the words of Madam Asasushi and our friend from the Tata group that there has to be a new engagement about looking for employability and the focus of education. This is an issue in the Philippines because generally most parents who pay for the education of these young people end up focusing on college degrees. They want a college degree for their child and increasingly the whole vocational system which is being referred to, Germany has been very successful in this sector and managed to bring their unemployment down to the lowest in Europe by using a very strong internship program, vocational program in getting youths particularly even straight out of high school straight into a position of employability. The point I just want to make is that I think there is a role for business to play. I think increasingly in our country where testing models were business, academia and government are working together to address a tremendous backlog in the educational sector. Business is providing some knowledge on the skill sets needed, academia is adjusting their programs to fit that and the government is creating a framework of support for this new structure. Just maybe to highlight one example, in the year 2000 we had no business processing outsourcing industry in the Philippines at all. Fast forward to today, maybe just 13 years later, it's a $15 billion industry and we have 1 million people employed in this sector. This took a tremendous amount of work on the private sector side to get engaged. They formed an association, we actually followed the model of India. That industry association then leveraged its clout with the academic institutions, adjusted the academic skills of the students coming out and prepared them to enter this business processing outsourcing industry and prepared the students with computer skills in English necessary to be relevant. It resulted in a great industry, it resulted in more employment and that can be done across many industries. Well, I think the two business leaders have managed to convince us that the private sectors, the companies can participate in bringing about the change that is happening in this country. I wonder though, Anselsu, how would you respond to these gentlemen's comments? Very positively and I'm very glad that you mentioned a vocational training in Germany. My model actually is Switzerland, but of course the Germans will claim that their model is better. The reason why I say Switzerland is because you mentioned a very important factor that in our part of the world, parents still want their children to go in for academic education. They want a degree, they want something they can hang up on the wall, cap and gown and everything. You must think many of those. Well, I have very few of those actually in the form of photographs, but this is I think the weakness of our eastern nations. We do put a lot of emphasis on academic achievement, but in Switzerland what I liked so much was the fact that there was no discrimination against vocational trained students. And they themselves don't feel themselves to be second class citizens because I spoke to some of them when I was in Switzerland and I asked them, do you feel that you're treated as second class because you're in the vocational training scheme and not in a university? And they said no. We don't feel this. We are treated with respect the same as everybody else and they were full of self confidence. And you know the reason for this is very simple. The earning capacity is as great as if not greater than the ones who go to university. And in the end it's earning capacity because your education, your skills should enable you to stand on your own two feet to decrease your dependency. And everywhere I go in Burma this is what I see that what people want is to be free of a sense of dependency. True independence is that, is that you don't have to depend on others in order to carve out your own destiny. And I really think that PPP is essential, private public partnership is essential because in Switzerland I think as in probably in Germany although I'm more familiar with the Swiss model. The vocational training students spend three days a week at the schools, two days at businesses at the industries which they eventually hope to join. So that by the time they have finished their training they are jobs waiting for them and they're ready to take over these jobs. And the same can't be said of the university graduates. So that's what gives vocational training an edge. No, Mr Alakawa, there are two questions that I want to ask you. We are talking about the job creation and human capacity building following what our three panellists have articulated for us. Jaika has been engaged in providing humanitarian assistance to Myanmar. I understand the countries faced with diverse challenges including lack of infrastructure and the legal mechanism to accommodate the change at the same time. What is the bigger picture that we have to have in mind in addressing these issues? Actually, looking at the five panellists, I have two heads. One is the public institution to support developing countries, so developing the agency. And also I'm a member of the Warwick and Forum Global Council on poverty and sustainable development. So from that perspective I'd like to argue. First, it is only two years since Myanmar government has taken and undergoing the substantive policy reform. Therefore, there are a lot of things to be fixed and to be reformed. Therefore, in our position, in our institution, we always think that it's necessary to have some sort of time elements or patience. That's one. Secondly, when we talk about education or labour force, it's necessary to look at the job opportunity at the same time as I mentioned. Therefore, this should be not only focusing on education per se, but also business opportunity, legal framework, or that kind of holistic approach. Not only that, close sector issues, like education, it is a very famous story that one thousand days after pregnancy, nutrition is playing a very crucial role to develop the brain. So to that extent, health and education closely linked, and the job opportunity and infrastructure improvement closely linked. And of course, if macroeconomy get into the crash, this is a tragedy of the country. Therefore, the cross sector, sequential order and holistic, that kind of a way of thinking and approach is very necessary. So in this regard, we have been taking this kind of very comprehensive, not single issue, minded approach. The comprehensive holistic approach. But you say it has only been two years since the reform and change has been happening. But Dorsu has said that many things can be done in two years. We are in the third year. By November, we have completed three years. And we are what, June, July, August, September, October, November. So I think what she means is that aspiration is okay, but is it time for action? Would I be writing paraphrasing what you might want to say? Yes, I think speed does matter. It's not everything, but it's important. Three years is a long time in the life of somebody who's unemployed and having to depend on others for his daily living. And you were talking about humanitarian help. Now I would like humanitarian help to this country also to be linked to skills, to teach, give us the skills to look after our own humanitarian problems. Not just helping us, but training us to cope for ourselves. So Mr Arakawa, how would you respond to this time frame of things that things need to be delivered now? Last week I attended a ticket so-called Tokyo International Conference on African Development. Exactly the theme is nearly the same. Vision with action. The worst case, vision without action or actions without vision. So it's in our time. Then as far as the JICA is concerned, after this meeting, I'm supposed to sign a loan agreement for $500 million for mainly infrastructure projects. And this is mainly three parts. One is quick, fixed type rehabilitation of power in the Yangon area. So presumably the situation will be totally improved soon. And the other second loan agreement is for regional development in the nationwide, mainly ethnic group area in order that they can enjoy the benefit of the new reform policies. And third one is special economic zone area, which the loan itself is to provide the infrastructure for this estate. But this will anyway surely contribute to the promotion of the direct investment and will presumably give the opportunity for job. Could I just put in a word about skills here? You were talking about infrastructure development and of course we are very much in need of basic infrastructure such as roads. But even there I think we can bring skills in. We don't want our road workers always to remain at the level of road workers. So this is what I mean that when you help us either in the form of development programs or humanitarian programs, I want our people involved to gain in skills so that they earn and they learn, earn and learn as you go along. That's what I was going to say. The telecommunication infrastructure is going to be put in your country and decisions are going to be taken by the end of this month as we understood from your ICT minister. Every single aspect of creation of the telecom infrastructure must go hand in hand with skills. If I were sending out the request for proposal, I would have included a component where skill building is one of the mandatory conditions of anything with the locals. We are trying to do in some of the construction projects in India as an example where every single institution we build there has to be a component of skill building progressively increasing year after year so that by the completion of the project we are completely self-sufficient in the skills that you want to acquire. I think those are some things that you can enable. Professor Aniko, by the way you must be happy with the gender balance on the stage. I love this. I totally am delighted with the gender balance. The panellists have talked about the expectations for a quick fix change as well as long-term vision, a vision accompanied by action. Is there a risk that when expectations exceed reality companies or private sectors who are disillusioned may withdraw when they decide that they cannot reap the benefit as quickly as they had hoped? You had spoken about the low-lying fruits theory before. Could you elaborate that in Myanmar's context? First of all I want to say a very warm good afternoon to all of you and I want to say a big thank you to Myanmar I think for the last two days for most of us. This is our first time in Myanmar and it is for me. Can we congratulate Myanmar for being very courageous and for hosting this wonderful platform? I want to do two things here. I want to stress the importance of public-private partnership. I think the industry are all very anxious, very interested in coming into Myanmar and of course the low-lying fruits that Aiko san was talking about is that everyone is looking at the extractive industries, looking at the resources, looking at the tourism and the healthcare areas but I think to be fair many of the governments in emerging markets do not have deep pockets in order to invest in human capital development immediately. So there is a lot of room for companies to come in and they collaborate and I do believe in what Daws Aung San Suu Chee was talking about. Universities may produce engineers but at the same time they do not have engineers with niche areas so you do need engineers that are knowledgeable in the extractive industries or engineers in maritime and you need geologists with a lot of deep knowledge. So between the institutions in defence of universities and the private sector I think there is a great lot of room for development for collaboration. So even in the low-lying fruits we shouldn't look at Myanmar's labour, wonderfully young population, it is just labour content. We should look at them as the human capital resource and there is room for a lot of development and I think not just vocational schools, even universities could be looking at hospitality and tourism management and you could appeal to parents who want to send children to the colleges and to the universities that it is not just vocational, that there is this aspiration towards development for the country. I'd like to add one more point. Singapore is a small country and so what we do is we are like a little prototype. We do a lot of experiments. So universities do work very closely with industry and acquire skills. It need not go into your GPA, it need not go into your credit courses but it could lead to a certification programme working with a partner company. PCS does a lot of that in India. We have a trading concentration that I can talk about later where we work with companies in collaboration so you may compete in the marketplace but you collaborate with one vision to develop human capital in the core business within the local country that you are investing in. Professor Co, it gives me the impression that the sense of mission perhaps would be required on the part of various actors that are coming to Myanmar, including the private sector. Would I be writing saying so, a kind of a corporate social responsibility aspect of things? I think not just because it's a corporate social responsibility, there is a wonderful business reason for doing this. Human capital is a wonderfully sticky capital and if you develop the human capital in your organisation well, you will be surprised you will attract like-minded people because many young people, when they graduate from universities today, they do ask questions like, what is the organisation going to do to develop me? What are my career pathways with your organisations? So don't invest in human capital because it's the CSR project. Invest in human capital because it makes business sense and you do create a group of young people who are loyal to the company because they could see that there is not just a job, it is also a career pathway for them. Perhaps I do want to comment on that. Yes, I agree with that. I was just going to say before Professor Co said that corporate responsibility is good business and let's face it, businesses are operating for profit and in fact I would have no confidence whatsoever in a business that was failing to make profits. How can they help us if they can't even help themselves? So it's all very well, it's fine. I approve of businesses that try to maximise their profits but at the same time they must try to maximise our benefits as well. This is what PPP really means, public-private partnership for the growth and development of a country and since we are talking about growth and development I have to say and this is very much a theme of this forum that I do mean inclusive development and this is essential in a country like ours made up of very many ethnic nationalities, a diverse country and if we are to make strength out of our diversity we must be inclusiveness and this is where businesses also come in. I would like them to look at the investments not just from the view of benefits but who is benefiting and how many people are benefiting how inclusive are the benefits that they are bringing to this country because if their investments profit one part of the country at the expense of the unity of the whole then they are not doing us a favour not in the long run, in the short run perhaps so we have to look at very many aspects of the situation there are many challenges but actually I think challenges are good for you it keeps you on your toes and that strengthens the muscles of your legs You sound very practical What you have just articulated for us I think it is very much consistent with what you have said before the goal as well as the means to achieve it must be just so that is the requirement on the part of the business community that is the sort of role that you would expect of the business world would I be right in saying it? Yes and I don't think this is this idealism I think it is this common sense because the world is more and more concerned about justice the times are passed when you can be a robber baron and get away with it and nowadays I don't think robber barons will get away with it they will probably end up in the dark so I think being just to be just this means building a better environment for yourself that is to say your business as well as the people with whom you are doing business so in the end I would like to look at business what the business is doing as creating an enabling environment for themselves, for their employees for the country in which they are investing Maybe our two panellys from the business community might want something to add I think the point about the corporate social responsibility has to be interwoven into the business itself and it is not something which is standing in isolation to preach to the world is what I am doing so we are doing a couple of things in a country like India one is trying to make it a certain percentage of the profits of the companies must be allocated for a corporate social responsibility and the bill is going to be tabled in parliament and that should be through second is having allocated a certain percentage the percentage varies anywhere from 2 to 5% of the total profits which is a very substantial amount of money skilling as one of the initiatives which can be taken up by the corporates can certainly be using their funds from this corporate social responsibility more importantly skilling for jobs so what have we done within the Tata group even before the law becomes passed by the parliament we have already initiated a number of programs in terms of skilling where all the Tata companies have come together creating a skills platform and whether it's welding, whether it's masonry, whether it's electrician whether it is IT, whatever it is and region specific skilling which we are trying to do so that the scale of possibility becomes there individual initiatives may be small but when we look at collectively including other private sector players being a part of this the government provides the land or the infrastructure which is necessary use the existing infrastructure instead of recreating the infrastructure I think the outcomes can be very very quick time is of essence in all of these things because the youth are not going to be waiting for three years, five years before you say we are ready to start this program use existing facilities, existing infrastructure but as the telecommunication rolls out use the power of telecommunications to reach out to many and finally the outcomes through a combination of on-the-job training and classroom training and we take help from any country whether it's a Swiss model, it's a German model, it's an Irish model Australian model, Singapore model we must be open to accept what is best for us and make sure your people are involved so that they benefit in the process Dorsu you have spoken about the inclusiveness of the growth and that we are taking Myanmar to work should be about the people about lifting people out of poverty would I be right in saying that development or the dividend of change has to be felt not only by the people living in urban areas but by almost 70% of the population who live in rural areas Absolutely because inclusiveness means that there is less inequality I think one of the problems of the great strides that India has made in the last few years has been that inequality has not decreased so that's growth and there are some people who would argue that that's growth but not development or certainly it's not inclusive development development of course would be growth plus a better well-being for the people and inclusiveness would mean that the proportion of people who have access to this greater well-being should increase all the time and that is inclusiveness and for our country that is a necessity it's not an indulgence because we are made up of so many different ethnic nationalities all our peoples will have to feel that they are included in a bigger share of the cake if not there will be political problems and I'll have to repeat here not just because I'm a politician which I am but because it's just plain common sense that we must keep political change and economic development very close together we cannot divorce the two they have to be linked for good in that case for better or for worse till death do them part and the point is that parting will be death for both so we really have to keep together the necessary political changes and reforms with economic growth and development plans I think Professor Cole wants to comment I really have to jump in here I love the word development everyone has a ministry of manpower but we actually have a workforce development authority and I think the earlier statement that Dawsu was talking about lifelong learning is a very important component even after you have your diploma or your degree you continue to have to learn and I think the learning a lot of it is going to take place at the workplace so for a long time many corporations invest in the top layer they send a lot of people for leadership training programmes but the forgotten middle layer is a very critical resource and now my biggest passion is about the middle layer because you need to engage everyone in your company and it has to be from the bottom, the middle and up to the top but the resources in many companies have been concentrated at the people at the top so I think lifelong learning making training available on the jobs and how to develop the potential of an individual I think having a job adds tremendous self-esteem and if you want someone to come to your company with high engagement score I think spend that investment on the development so this is how I'm sure that organisations sitting here are doing that as well Mr Ayala, since you are from the ASEAN country one question I wanted to ask you was what would be the impact of ASEAN community building on Myanmar we are talking about empowering the people and empowering the country but would it be a horizon expanding for Myanmar or is there a risk of Myanmar's economy yielding to the force of market integration if the economy is not well enough? Let me just start by saying that I feel very positive about everything that's happening in ASEAN and of course Myanmar's strong engagement in recent years with the rest of ASEAN is actually very exciting for all of us and actually has put us back on the map so for that we thank our Myanmar neighbours for adding a new element of excitement I guess to the ASEAN story but bottom line I believe that there is a move towards an ASEAN that's becoming increasingly integrated and that means that generally there will be a movement of people between our countries that's going to be more increasingly allowed it'll be a freer entry and I think it's in all our interest to take I guess all our standards up what I like about ASEAN as a concept is that generally all the boats I believe will rise with the tide we will all look to each other to learn we will all look to each other for investment and we will all try to raise our standards to the level of each other I think this is a very exciting time for Myanmar but its problems are not similar to the ones that we face in other countries I think the fact that we're all working together as an association of nations is an exciting one and as we all move to integrate as we all move to share as we all move to learn from each other I like to think that we will all profit from taking our standards up to balance each other out if I can just make one last comment on Mada Manxus who sees emphasis on PPP I'm a great believer in this concept I think for three points number one the whole issue of resource allocation has not been put on the table all our countries are challenged with the issue of resources there are many demands there is education there are so many things I think engaging the private sector together with government in addressing these needs and bringing private sector capital to address many of the backlogs I think is a wonderful concept the right frameworks have to be put in place but bringing that capital to work for what were traditionally public sector interests I think is a very exciting proposition to get resources allocated to the sector number two there must be an alignment towards modernity in progress in the way students are taught I think that alignment with the private sector would bring some focus on that the issues of road learning of memorization are irrelevant to a modern population young people now increasingly have to think on their feet imagination is paramount the conceptual component of their processing of ideas has to move up the old traditional ways of learning have to fall back an alignment with the private sector will help in that and finally and I think our friends from India mentioned this all of this has to be enabled by a very strong infrastructure network bringing technology to the fore like the sort of scheme Mr Alakawa articulated that's exactly right one of the keyword that has been repeatedly used in our discussion would be of course inclusiveness or the sustainability of growth and Mr Ayala has mentioned no PPP public private partnership to bring that about that is also Japan's agenda Mr Alakawa regarding human resource development I think talents and jobs there needs to be a very good matchmaking in a sense otherwise people won't be able to find and retain jobs matching the right talent with the right skills with the right job becomes necessary in that respect is there any specific scheme of things that Jaika perhaps has in mind well not only Jaika but also as a development partners like a war bank Asian Development Bank DeField and other pilot agencies as well we have already come up with so-called sector working group not single institution can get engaged in one single sector or project in a holistic manner and with concerted efforts we have already established 15 sector working group so that in order to avoid overlapping or in order to achieve the goal more efficiently in terms of inclusiveness and so on and also as I said earlier each sector has its own relationship with other sector as well therefore interlink sector solution should be done so in this regard this approach sector working group 15 sector working group of course together with the Myanmar Government or under the auspices or under the initiative of Myanmar Government we have been working on that so and also we have been accumulating the lessons learned from other emerging countries what is success story or what is the good practices or what is the failure case so there are lots of lessons learned and fortunately there are many cases where we can learn from the other countries cases and Myanmar fortunately as a part so you can take advantage all the failure or success story into your development agenda that is one of the things that we can bring in and that one secondly even though there are a lot of things to fix but as you know Professor Ko mentioned resources are limited under the resource constraints how to achieve the goals in terms of sustainability or jobs that is still a challenge therefore taking advantage of this platform of sector working group we would like to do our utmost efforts and I understand that there is going to be a Japan center going to be oh yes, thank you so much well this coming August we are going to open up a so-called Japan center one of the focus is vocational training taking advantage of the Japanese technology of Japanese know-hounds or ethics everything we are going to take advantage of this center is it a one stop sort of thing very practical, very pragmatic and lastly as I mentioned inclusiveness and provision of basic infrastructure that is very critical therefore as I said earlier the first project regional development major component of this project is to provide very small access access to the water, access to the electricity and road improvements so that market access or access to the education so this kind of small step but we like to continue this kind of direction could I just put in a word about vocational training that our legislature is in the process of drawing up a high education law and under that we hope to put in where we will be putting in vocational training programs so I am just reminding what to remind you that your programs will have to be in keeping with our law the primacy of the legislature let me put on my reporter cap rather than the moderator cap because there was this question that I wanted to ask of Doan Sasushi about Japan's continued assistance in Myanmar in Japan you were cautious in evaluating the significance of Japan's continued assistance to Myanmar saying that there are both negative and positive aspects of things how would you make the evaluation now and what are the roles that you would expect for aid organizations including that of Japan to play first of all I would make it quite clear that the Japanese people have always stood firmly by us and I very much appreciate that and I do make a distinction between the government of Japan and the people of Japan with regard to the government of Japan I cannot say that I have always agreed with their policies with regard to Burma but recently we have been operating working very closely with them and we have identified those areas where we think the Japanese government can help to promote skills to create jobs and to help to its growth and development for example I am rather keen on promoting the silk industry in Burma and of course Japan is in a very good position to help us with that and Ms Dalakos taking notes here and also I am going to talk about my constituency now some people object to my talking about my constituency because they say that I should talk about the hold of Burma which is true but after all I do represent my constituency and we have got a lot of bamboo in my constituency and I would like to develop skills connected to bamboo because I want to look at things in the long run we have an opportunity which I think has been lost to many countries that developed before us of preserving the beauty of our environment at the same time as we go for development and so for example I want to preserve the bamboo groves in my constituency while at the same time providing skills and jobs for our people so these are the kind of projects that I would like to concentrate on and of course these are rural projects and as you mentioned earlier the great majority of our people live in the rural areas almost 70% and if our country is to become truly wealthy the people of the rural area must develop they must get richer then only can we claim that our country is richer of course according to statistics 26% of our people are below the poverty line but I think in fact the figure is higher than that because that figure is based on data which in the cases of some regions are taken simply from the bigger towns and of course they do not really reflect the true situation of the country because for example if you are I was quite surprised to find that the poverty level in the Kaya state for example when some statistics came out about three years ago was supposed to be in a better situation than it almost rivaled that of Rangoon and that doesn't make sense but this is because they only went to the main town in Kaya and looked at the electricity that was available here there the water availability and so on and of course they didn't go down to the villages at all and in the villages where they had nothing if you average it out everything would have really the figure would have come down tremendously so our poverty line I think certainly starts somewhere above 26% so there's a lot that we need to do for our rural population very good I think the point Dawahongsangsu chi made with regard to I want something to be done in my constituency that's absolutely correct if every single MP took up the responsibility of developing their constituencies from a skilling point of view and creating the jobs either close to their homes or as the mobility takes place with the right kind of wages skills solving the problem will become a lot more easier that's what we are trying to do in India where every single MP some of them are really committed to this kind of initiative where they're coming and telling me what can we do in our constituency and I'll give you whatever you want I'll give my time in addition to anything else so the supply of youth for mobilising for the skilling advocacy for the skilling not only to the students but also to their parents and then enabling the industry or entrepreneurship to happen so that the whole value system the value chain and the ecosystem is created so I think my request is keep pushing this legislation and every MP must own a responsibility for developing the skills and it makes them more accountable makes them more accountable and responsible sustainable there was a question that I wanted to address our panellists from the audience I think it goes to Dawahongsangsu chi about cultivating talents or finding the right talents the person asked that the youth and adults under the military regime suffered unprecedented educational genocide the most able citizens left the country for education and career and there are millions of Myanmar Burmese workers in neighbouring countries and elsewhere do you think that it is important to bring those talents back to Myanmar? I want our country to be a place to which any of our people can come back to if they want to I don't want to force them to come back and of course I would very much welcome it if they were to bring their talents back if they would like to bring their talents back but it's got to be voluntary there's got to be willingness a willingness to serve and I do not mean full time either I'm quite practical and I'd be quite happy if for example our doctors in the United States would like to devote one or two months a year to working with our young doctors in rural hospitals there they will be providing services as well as teaching our young doctors skills training them so I want our country to be a refuge a true sanctuary for all our people everywhere I think I believe the Chinese have a saying that when leaves fall they go back to the roots they fall to the roots of the tree and that is the kind of country I want Burma to be where our people can come back to wherever they may wish to as one would go back to one's parents home and I believe there's got to be the capacity to absorb that talent this is why I say that they don't have to come back full time they don't have to come back permanently but if they would like to make a contribution to what we're trying to achieve we should make it possible for them I'd like to go back to what I said earlier an enabling environment I think this is what we have to concentrate on if I were to say just put it in very shortly what we need most for growth and development and political progress I would say an enabling environment and that has a lot to do with the government and that is to say the executive the legislature the judiciary we all have to join in creating an enabling environment for our people and also perhaps the international community and play a role in there as well but I do believe in standing on one's own two feet I think people ultimately have to be prepared to work for themselves then, well you know that I was saying God helps those who help themselves so I think that the international community probably is less altruistic than God so we'll have to help ourselves a lot more if we want them to help us and I think this question or analysis goes to Mr Ayala there was a poll taken among the participants what should be the top priority for Myanmar to improve people's skills and encourage employment and 22% said promoting vocational training 19% said creating world class universities 58% said compulsory secondary education but I think we already know the answer to this statistics where we agree that it's really skills and human resource talents are required at all levels really would I be right in saying that Yes I'd like to argue I think maybe the division of the percentages is a reflection of the Myanmar of today I can't speak for the country obviously but obviously we need a balance of all three and the country will go through its own stages of development and different skills will be needed at each stage I think if I were in Myanmar's shoes I would put a great premium on getting people employed and getting the country's economy moving that will need a whole different set of skills to a more highly developed economy with more sophisticated needs I think a balance is needed people have great capacities across a spectrum of educational needs everyone can contribute in their own way I think a balanced approach is as good as you can get Well the discussion has been truly engaging and it is indeed perhaps an open ended discussion but I'd like to stop here for a while and give the audience a chance to pose their questions to our panellists please raise your hand identify yourself make your comment question as brief and as to the point as possible and let us know to whom you would like to address your question to I see many hands up I think I see a one hand over there a gentleman could you please stand so that the microphone can come to you Claude Langefeld from GISET German International Cooperation agency we are already involved in this in this country in vocational training we are planning to go there I have a question to because the German model works we have so many little unemployment because we are the export champion of the world we export more than one billion even more than China some years my question is if you need to give employment to those people who have been trained which are the sectors which you see most promising for Myanmar for both the internal market and for the export market including tourism my main sector is tourism who can absorb those people who are trained thank you I didn't say that the German model wasn't good I just said I'm more familiar with the Swiss and therefore I'm rather inclined towards it thank you very much for all you have done for vocational training in this country I know that Germany and Switzerland are the only two countries which have managed somehow or the other to retain their vocational training programmes through all the years of military rule and which sector the sector that is most important really is the agriculture sector because there are so many more people there and then of course you can't really separate the two because when peasants are rendered landlars and they no longer have work in their own homes they come to the cities and then they add to the unemployment problem in the cities so what I would like you to do is to concentrate on what you do best I think that's how things work that whatever vocational training has worked best for you from the point of view of the trainers I think that's what we want but if you ask me where, which sectors I want you to concentrate on rural and ethnic because I want development in this country to be even handed it must be inclusive which means that whatever development projects and vocational training projects you are instituting in the mainly Burmese areas of this country I would like similar as many projects as possible in the ethnic areas as well and that way you will not only be helping our country to become more developed but also helping us to become more unified and growth becomes more equitable Yes, inclusiveness growth unless it's equitable and unless it's inclusive in the long run could lead to tremendous political problems if only the Burmese ethnic group are going to get richer and richer and richer it's not going to help us to build a true union Are you beginning to see perhaps a symptom of that already growing in Myanmar? No, I think the problem has always been there and we have never had an opportunity or perhaps a circumstances have never been right for us to truly address that issue and to resolve it Perhaps we have time for two more questions and let me go in one go Gentleman over there and the lady in orange t-shirts there Good afternoon everyone Thank you Anson Succi for such an inspiring conversation in this morning I'm David Heads, I'm from Brazil I'm a YGL and I'm a chef and a social entrepreneur and I mentioned to you that food is a good way to skill everyone I think food has the power, the potential responsibility to transform lives and I have examples from here from Yungon the Yungon bake house which employed and employed women and the Shwebasi that do the unemployment skills for youth so my question and I also want to just to mention that as a YGL we came here before and we did a food learning journey where we got the whole chain the supply chain, the restaurants and the chefs with Ms Piu Piu team from Munson restaurant and she's going to become our leader here to put unite everyone to support the farmers and we created this food vision that we want to put into action because I'm from Brazil, I'm not going to be here but I want to support this network to really use food to bring pride to the country and also skills Thank you And Bushar, shall I go on to have another question from the floor the lady in the front row could you please stand so that the microphone can come to you Well it's a great privilege to be here I'm from Pakistan, my name is Munise Jahangir I'm a journalist and we have admired you from afar Ms Suhti as one of the inspirational figures in your struggle for democracy you have given us great inspiration I have two parts to my question the first part is that at the moment it seems that the military janta has some kind of investment in most of the major industries here in Myanmar so when foreign investors do come in what advice do you have for them so that they don't really damage the political and the democratic struggle that your party and people like you have launched from Myanmar the second part of my question is it seems that you seem to be in a juggernaut here in Myanmar there is obviously a constitutional ban on you for not becoming president and it also seems that the military has reserved seats in parliament in that case how do you plan to get out of this do you have a framework for Myanmar to go from military rule and a transition of it to complete democracy first to answer the question about food because that came first and also since you are in YGL may I say that my session with YGL this morning was the most enjoyable I've had in this forum it really was I would never any particular issue I like to look at different aspects of it when you mention food what immediately sprung to my mind was the way in which we could help to make traditional food lucrative for our people and what I've done practically is I we have four constituencies in the Napidore area where our MPs are in place and I went to look at one of them a few months ago and they served us a lot of local sweet meats and they're very good traditional Burmese snacks and sweets and it occurred to me that it would be very good if we could promote these by asking the hotels of which there are many in Napidore to serve these to the guests rather than Danish pastries and French shoes and so mind you I'm very fond of Danish pastries and I'm very fond of the Danish people too but I thought this would be a good idea and we started a little experiment asking this particular village to make sweets that they would deliver to a hotel and asking the hotel to try it out on their guests so I would like you to work at this food venture in this way you help villagers to earn money you help us to preserve our traditions you help to develop the culinary skills of our people and you help our visitors to have nicer food so it's win-win all around now with regard to your two questions first of all you said that you were worried that the military has an interest in many of the new media enterprises and you would not like those who are investing to invest in the wrong ones industry whether it is industry or whether it's a media I think it's how you invest because for me life should be an educational process as I said earlier it's an unending process of learning and those who happen to be investing in those businesses which are connected to the military must at the same time open the military up to the benefits of good democratic institutions so it should be a learning teaching process and you were also talking and it's connected of course a second question the provisions in the constitution which might stop me from standing for the presidency or which might stop this country from becoming a true civilian democracy we have to take this step by step and I've answered this question very often I have confidence in the fact that our people in the military our military personnel are also citizens of this country the well-being of this country should matter to them and I think it does matter to them what we have got to make them understand that what we are involved in is a joint effort we are all trying to build up this country together to be the kind of nation we wish it to be and I have always been very open about the fact that if our military were truly professional and loved and honoured by the people they would be so much happier than they are now it's not power that brings happiness it is the acceptance of every country of what you are and who you are and I am confident that there are enough sensible people in our military to understand this we will take it step by step I believe in non-violence I believe in reconciliation rather than confrontation although I have been accused of confrontation very often simply because I want to confront problems problems are there to be confronted and they might be resolved but basically the way of resolving them is through building up mutual respect as I said in our meeting this morning mutual respect and mutual understanding on which are the two ingredients on which we have to build our reconciliation program but I have great faith in the army but thank you for the question thank you now we are nearing the end of our discussion and I would like to ask one question of the ones in Sushi empowering the people of Myanmar has much to do with what sort of nation one is trying to build how would you like to see Myanmar people empowered and develop to bring about the country that they envision to bring about the Myanmar if we are going to talk about it in terms of practical skills education of course is key but I am a little old fashioned in this I think that it's not just education in the sense of academic and technical skills it's also mindset it's a way people see things and I do believe that basically human beings can discriminate between what is good and between what is bad I do believe in that if they had not had this capacity we would be still running around in caves clubbing one another and we are nowhere near that now so we have progress despite all setbacks despite all the problems I think that each and every human being, a normal one a normal mentally healthy human being has this capacity to tell the good from the bad and I would like this capacity developed along with our technical and academic skills well thank you for this this session to fully realise Myanmar's potential the dividends of change must be felt by all and taking Myanmar to work as we discussed means creating jobs and making people employable so that growth in Myanmar becomes inclusive, equitable and sustainable our panellists have convinced us that the private sector must also participate in the transformation that is taking place and that only then can the optimistic projections from Myanmar become reality but thank you everyone for your participation I'd like to have a big round of applause for our panellists, thank you very much