Minister of National Integration Vinayagamurthy Muralitharan said that the opening of the Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau (SLFEB) office in Batticaloa would be a tower of strength to prospective migrant workers leading to a reduction in the rate of unemployment among Tamil and Muslim youths in the Eastern Province.

At present unemployment among youths which is at drastically high level in the district.

The Minister said that the SLFEB was constituted through an act of Parliament and that the people of the East had suffered a lot and looked forward to employment in the Middle-East among whom many had been victims of fraudulent job agents..

"The Officials should take up the challenge to go to the people in the remotest of areas to create the necessary awareness and not wait for the people to come up to them.

"Opening the centre in the East would lead to development of Human resources in the Eastern Province.

"As one would know in the past experience has revealed that our people have been deprived of most if not all opportunities available through the State and private sector foreign employment agencies which would have been beneficial to Tamil and Muslim youths of the district", he said.

The Minister said that he believed Sri Lanka was an unique country because the responsibilities of taking forward the policies of the Government are cast on several ministers who are obliged to implement different activities as directed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa but these ministers' functions were not activated in the North and the East over a long period of time as a result of terrorism that prevailed.