The Minister for Employment, Productivity and Industrial Relations, Youth and Sports Honourable Parveen Kumar Bala received a courtesy visit from the Minister for Labour and Industrial of the Government of Papua New Guinea Honourable Mehrra Kipefa yesterday.
Minister Kipefa thanked Minister Bala and his team for the warm welcome and for taking time to meet with the delegation.
Minister Bala highlighted that the courtesy visit discussions focused on the high level meeting tripartite dialogue on the future of work to be held in Papua New Guinea and two other international events that they will host, which is the ILO Centennial celebration and the Regional Labour Ministers’ meeting on Labour Mobility Scheme including seasonal work.
“Part of the Regional Labour Ministers’ meeting is to also look at the views of other Pacific Island countries that are non-members of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and to voice their issues during the high level tripartite dialogue meeting focusing in “leaving no one behind”.
He added that the discussions also included climate change and future disaster resilience, looking at ways on how the Pacific Island countries can provide decent work to its people and their employment security.
Minister Bala thanked the government of Papua New Guinea for hosting such a very important meeting and also assured the PNG delegation that Fiji will be well-represented in this worthy course as Fiji and PNG are the two major players of the ILO agendas and other labour aspects in the Pacific region.
The Papua New Guinea Minister for Labour and Industrial Relations Honourable Kipefa was accompanied by the Papua New Guinea High Commissioner to Fiji, Her Excellency Lucy Bogari, Acting Secretary for Labour and Industrial Relations, Mr Ravu Bagi and senior officials of the Ministry.
Honourable Minister Kipefa also extended their sincere and deepest sympathy toward the loss of Fijians in the Christchurch attacks.