THE Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS) and the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China are set to deepen cooperation in critical areas of training, capacity-building and skill acquisition for employability of Nigerian youths, a statement by the Head of Special Duties of the Institute, Mr Emmanuel Ojo, disclosed at the weekend.
The statement, made available to National Record, said the new Director General of MINILS, Comrade Issa Aremu, met with Mr Cun Jianchun, the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria in Abuja on Wednesday last week over the cooperation.
The meeting, the statement said, focused on collaboration and partnership between MINILS and China Embassy in areas of institution-building, peoples-to-peoples contact and technical assistance on vocational training. In attendance were Mr Zhao Yong, Minister Counsellor of China Embassy, and Mr Song Huhang, the attaché.
Drawing on the lessons of China in youth employment and poverty eradication, the new Ambassador observed that the solution to mass youth employment in Africa was skill acquisition and skill upgrading for youth employability.
Mr Jianchun expressed the readiness of China to partner with the Institute in entrepreneurship, vocational training for the youth as well as institutional-building through social responsibility intervention of Chinese companies in Nigeria.
MINILS was established in 1986 to contribute meaningfully to national development through regular capacity-building training for the country’s workforce, organised trade unions, organised employers of labour and government officials on critical labour market issues like labour-management relations, best practices, industrial harmony and entrepreneurship for sustainable economic development.
Since its establishment, MINILS has trained numerous workers and employers from both the public and private sectors. The training with certification had helped in providing a conducive and harmonious environment to implement successful governments, the statement said.
In a related development, the Director General, Comrade Aremu, has observed that “[t]he dramatic transformation of People’s Republic of China from a backward, underdeveloped country into the second world largest economy in record time shows that massive investment in education is the most powerful weapon nations can change the world”.
Comrade Aremu spoke during the week at a symposium organised by Chinese Cultural Centre to mark the 100 years of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The symposium, chaired by Senator Adamu Muhammed Bulkachuwa, Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, had the Chinese Ambassador and the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Mr Udom Emmanuel, represented by his deputy, as special guests.
Participants at the anniversary hailed the achievements of China in dramatic transformation in economy, science and space technology, as well as absolute poverty eradication under the leadership of the Communist Party in the last 70 years.
On his part, Comrade Aremu said: “Notwithstanding the distance and geography, Nigeria and China shared significant traits of big population size in Africa and Asia of 1.5 billion (official 1.3 billion).
“One in every two Asians is Chinese, while one in every three persons in Africa is a Nigerian”
Aremu commended China-Nigeria relations under President Muhammadu Buhari citing what he called ‘unprecedented railway renaissance’ in Lagos-Ibadan, Abuja-Kaduna and Itakpe-Ajaokuta new rail lines covering hundreds of kilometres.
