Thailand to open new nationality verification centres for immigrants

BANGKOK, April 11 (TNA) - Labor Minister Phadermchai Sasomsab says that Thailand's five new nationality verification centers for migrant workers will likely be opened by the end of this month. Phadermchai made the projection following his meeting with the Myanmar charge d'affaires in Bangkok on Tuesday, during which he informed the Myanmar envoy that the new nationality verification centers in Bangkok, Samut Sakhon, Samut Prakan, Surat Thani and Chiang Mai provinces will likely start operations shortly, after the signing of a Thai-Myanmar memorandum of understanding (MOU) by the Thai side by the end of this month, under which both Thailand and Myanmar would agree to reduce migrant workers' registration costs to below 10,000 baht each. Phadermchai acknowledged that once the new centers are opened, nationality verifications of existing legal Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand will be complete by June 2012, and that the Myanmar envoy has urged the Thai government to take care of Myanmar workers and to extend the dateline for the nationality verification for migrant workers, as there are several more Myanmar nationals who want to come across the border to work in Thailand. According to the Myanmar envoy, there will likely be higher demand for workers in Myanmar once a new industrial site in Dawei is opened and the Myanmar government has also doubled the country's daily minimum wage to 3,000 baht monthly and has raised Myanmar civil servants' salaries by 1,000 baht each. (TNA)