This is a section of statement adopted by the ICFTU-APRO Forum in Singapore in 1998

"Asian governments must invite unions and employers to join them in creating and strengthening high-level national tripartite councils to assist them in developing policies to manage the work out of the foreign debt, the restructuring of the economy, the implementation of social and employment policies to prevent unemployment and alleviate poverty and the sustaining of recovery. Such councils, which should also be established at regional and local levels, must be founded on full respect for freedom of association:

The priorities are:

• the creation of jobs, especially for new entrants on the labour market;

• preventing viable jobs being lost by separating non-performing assets, and their accompanying debts, from sound businesses;

• the payment of due wages and severance pay in the event of company bankruptcies as a first claim on liquidated assets;

• company level negotiations on social plans to go alongside the financial reconstruction of enterprises;

• the implementation of social programmes to support the incomes of the unemployed, held them find new jobs and invest in training and retraining, and prevent a reversal of the region’s efforts to eliminate child labour;

• the implementation of labour intensive public workers programmes, including for unemployed migrant workers;

• the development of social security systems to ensure workers an adequate pension in retirement, unemployment, injury and sickness benefits, and to fund healthcare;

• a drive to improve health and safety at work since hazard prevention measures are frequently sacrificed by cost-cutting employers in periods of recession;

• extending education provision to poorer families, so that the economy is build by educated adults not child labour;

• guaranteeing the supply of basic needs such as food, fuel and shelter at affordable prices;

• a special focus on the impact of the crisis on women workers, who make up more than half the total labour force in the three countries hit hardest by the crisis, are in general lower paid and have a more precarious employment status than men, through for example special credit facilities for the self-employed and equal access to job opportunities and training;