Top envoys visit one-stop service center for migrant workers

SAMUT PRAKAN, THAILAND, July 7 (TNA) - Top envoys of three neighboring countries have visited a new one-stop service center for migrant workers in Bangkok's suburban Samut Prakan Province. Thailand's Chief of Joint Staff General Sirichai Ditthakul, in his capacity as head of a sub-committee handling migrant labor issues and Permanent Secretary for labor Jirasuk Sugandhajati brought the Myanmar, Lao and Cambodian Ambassadors to Thailand to visit the new one-stop service center at the Benchaburapha Suvarnabhumi Center in Bangpoo Mai Sub-district of Samut Prakan's Muang District, which was opened on Monday, as ordered by the Thai army-led National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). Samut Prakan Governor Phinit Hanpanich told journalists that about 50,000 illegal migrant workers are expected to seek legal registrations at the new center, comprising 30,000 Myanmar, 15,000 Cambodian and 5,000 Lao nationals. According to the governor, migrant workers will first receive work permits to be valid for 60 days and their employers must later bring them to official registrations, charged 1,305 baht for each worker. Samut Prakan's migrant workers' registrations will be opened until August 5, 2014 with the provincial facility expected to be able to register 12,000 workers daily. The Thai junta ordered such facilities to be opened in seven more provinces, including Samut Prakan, Ayutthaya, Rayong, Chon Buri, Chachoengsao, Surat Thani and Songkhla, after the first center of its kind was recently set up in Bangkok's adjacent Samut Sakhon Province, as part of its policy on addressing problems related to illegal migrant labor and alleged human trafficking. (TNA)