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The Philippines and South Korea recently signed an arrangement for the enhancement of the occupational safety and health system in the country.

Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz on Thursday said the new arrangement is in furtherance of the Arrangement for Technical Cooperation between the Korean Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) of the Republic of Korea and the Philippines’s Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

“The new agreement is in consonance with the desire of both countries to continue their cooperation, with a view to enhancing the OSH system in the Philippines within the framework of its national standards and regulations,” said Baldoz.

A delegation from South Korea, headed by Lee Jae Kap, Vice Minister of the Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor, has met with DOLE Undersecretary Lourdes Trasmonte, Labor Standards and Social Protection cluster head, last week of July to sign the agreement. Undersecretary Trasmonte signed on behalf of the DOLE.

“The agreement aims to establish a framework of cooperation between the DOLE and the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) of Korea in order to provide assistance for the enhancement of the Philippines’s OSH policy and systems by sharing Korea’s OSH laws, systems, and policy experiences with the DOLE,” Baldoz explained.

Under the agreement, Korea’s MOEL will provide financial and technical support to DOLE in carrying out the following activities:

(a) analyze the Philippines’s policies on industrial accident prevention, workplace improvement, and industrial accident compensation, and provide advice and guidelines for the enhancement of OSH policies in the Philippines;

(b) send experts to the Philippines to provide assistance for the enhancement of OSH policies, especially with regard to industrial accident prevention, workplace improvement, and industrial accident compensation;

(c) provide training to the Philippines’s policy makers/implementers in Korea so that they can learn about Korea’s experiences, including the implementation of policies on industrial accident prevention, workplace improvement, and industrial accident compensation and the management of relevant institutions.

For its part, the DOLE will cooperate with, and provide financial, technical, and administrative support to, MOEL as follows:

(a) assist MOEL in undertaking its advisory activities.

(b) provide administrative support to the Korean experts during their stay in the Philippines.

(c) provide the financial and administrative support agreed upon between MOEL and DOLE to the Philippines’s policymakers/implementers for their participation in the training courses in Korea and seminars in the Philippines.

The parties have also agreed to conduct other activities proposed by either MOEL or DOLE, if deemed necessary.

The MOEL has designated its International Cooperation Bureau, while the DOLE has designated its Bureau of Working Conditions, as the two governments’ respective offices in charge of implementing the arrangement.

The responsible bureaus will oversee, support, and evaluate the implementation of the activities outlined in the arrangement.

“The specific activities in each area of cooperation will be determined through consultation between the responsible bureaus of MOEL and DOLE, between the responsible bureau of MOEL and a policy advisory agency designated by MOEL, or between the responsible bureau of DOLE and the policy advisory agency designated by MOEL,” explained Baldoz.

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