The Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee has given permission to the local branch of the Social Policy Bank to increase the size of loans for the guest-workers who are poor or social beneficiaries, from VND30 million per person to VND40 million per person.

The province will give preferential loans to people in seven mountainous districts. Those who are poor or who belong to ethnic minority groups will receive free vocational training and foreign language instruction and extra financial assistance for food, housing, and transportation.

In 2009, Thanh Hoa exported 8,000 workers to become one of the provinces with the highest numbers of guest-workers.

At present, nearly 40,000 workers from the province are working overseas on fixed-term contracts. They remitted some US$55 million to their families back home in 2009.