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Asean deal to benefit RP nurses(Manila Standard Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Local nurses will no longer have difficulty accessing other countries within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations once a mutual recognition agreement on nursing services is signed in the forthcoming 12th Asean Summit in Cebu later this month. Bureau of International Trade Relations director Ramon Vicente Kabigting told reporters that professional nurses could ply their trade in any of the 10 Asean countries with the signing of the agreement. "For the Philippines which pushed for this particular MRA, its brand of nurses is a premium brand. With the signing of an admission of equivalence among the Asean member economies, the Philippine brand [of nurses] can really assert itself in that market." Asean groups the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Brunei Darussalam. The agreement on nursing is similar to the one signed on engineering services during the 11th Asean Summit in Kuala Lumpur last year. The deal is an initiative in support of the Bali Concord II calling for the completion of MRAs in major professional services. The agreement would facilitate mobility of nursing professionals within Asean, exchange information and expertise on standards and qualifications, promote adoption of best practices and provide opportunities for capacity building and training. Kabigting said that while the agreement would mean more job opportunities for Filipino nurses abroad, it would also mean allowing foreign professionals to work in the country, which would entail amending the Constitution, which presently bars foreigners to practice their craft in the Philippines. The MRA is one of the seven agreements to be signed by the Asean economic ministers later this month. The other agreements cover the Asean framework (amendment) for the integration of priority sectors; sectoral integration (amendment) protocol for the integration of priority sectors; protocol to implement the fifth package of commitments under the Asean framework agreement on services; Agreement on trade in services of the framework agreement on comprehensive economic cooperation between Asean and the People's Republic of China; second protocol to amend the framework agreement on comprehensive economic cooperation between Asean and the People's Republic of China; and the Protocol to amend the trade in goods of the Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between Asean and the People's Republic of China. Copyright 2006 Manila Standard. Source: Financial Times Information Limited. |