Labour and Manpower Minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan yesterday stressed the need for appropriate training to ensure effective utilisation of modern technology to harness the country's huge manpower resources for expediting the pace of economic growth reports BSS

He also felt for proper ap plication of the technology to tap the full potential of our resources by upgrading the skill and said training had got no substitute in this regard

The Labour and Manpower Minister was inaugurating a week long Bangladesh Japan training course on "attachment making technology for Indus trial sewing machine" at Sonargaon Hotel here..

Organised by the Aaso elation for Overseas Technical Scholarship (AOTS) of Japan in cooperation with Juki Corporation Limited Zakaria Enter prise Limited. Bangladesh AOTS Alumni Society (BAAS) and • Bureau of Manpower Export and Training (BMET), the training course is being taken part by about 20 technical persons and deal gners from different garment Industries.

Two Japanese experts from

Juki Corporation. Hasumi and Sakuma will conduct the training course

The inaugural turicuon was also addressed by Y Kuroda. Minister of the Embassy of Japan and MAM Zlauddin. Director General of BMET as special guests Moynul Hasan. President of BAAS. T Kitamura. Executive Vice President of Juki. Iwao Ogawa. General Manager of Training Management Division of AOTS Headquarters and A K M Moazzem Hussain AOTS Representative in Bangladesh. M Zakaria Bhuiyan. Chairman of the course steering committee and also Chairman of Zakaria Enterprise gave the welcome address

The minister said skill especially in the garments sector, was essentially required for Improvement of quality of products. Hence, skill for quality control at each stage is necessary to ensure standard of products and reduction of wastage, he said

He said readymade garment Industries had made a e-•oi i nd Ing contribution to the nation a economy and added this sector was one of the country's main foreign exchange earners. This sector's

contribution can easily be determined In terms of its share In national Income, employment generation and the volume of exports, he added

Bangladesh. according to official sources earned about Taka 2420 crore by exporting garments during the first five months of the current financial year representing about 55 per cent of the country's total export earnings

Mannan Bhuiyan said that the government had already established garments training facilities wing at BMET with assistance from the ILO and UNDP to cater to the needs of skill, required In different garment industries .However he said the scope and the ex IsUng facilities were negligible compared to our national requirement

He hoped the participants .would get a sure direction and necessary guidelines for improvement of their skill and thereby apply those to their respective units.

Y Kuroda. In his speech, said Japan was endeavouring for the economic development in the private sector In Bangladesh.