Guwahati, Sept. 6: The Assam government will soon sign memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with Taiwan and South Korea to provide skill development training to the state's youths in floriculture and electronics respectively.

Industries minister Chandra Mohan Patowary today told the Assembly that the government had decided to have partnerships with Taiwan and South Korea as the two countries are the best in floriculture and electronics.

'As we have a separate skill development department now, we want to diversify the skill development courses and not remain confined to just courses on driving, welding, plumbing among others. We have included fisheries as a subject and will introduce courses on floriculture, hospitality and tourism as well. Floriculture has a huge potential. We depend on flowers imported from Taiwan and Singapore. We are looking at the industry leaders for tie-ups so that our youths get the best training and make themselves ready for jobs in the market,' Patowary said.

He was replying to a question by AGP legislator Pradip Hazarika who laid emphasis on having multi-task training for the educated unemployed youths to make them ready for job requirements.

The departmenthas recently signed an MoU with Singapore for a tie-up on providing skill development training on hospitality, tourism and retail.

'The external affairs minister of Singapore will visit our state on November 1 for further discussions on setting up a top class 'skill city' here. It will be one of the best in the country and students from other parts of the Northeast will get training for jobs. So we have decided to name it 'Northeast skill city,'' Patowary said.

He added that by October end, each block in the state would have a skill development centre and each district a driving school.

At present, Assam has nearly 20 lakh educated unemployed youths and the state government is planning to provide skill development training to 1.5 lakh youths within this year.

Talking about placements after the courses, Patowary said the new industrial units, being set up in Assam by private companies, have been asked to recruit trained youths from the state.

'They will provide us a list of their requirements and accordingly we will provide training to local youths so that they get jobs locally,' he said.