President Rodrigo Duterte is set to witness the signing of a labor agreement for Filipino caregivers during his official visit in Israel.

Philippine Ambassador to the State of Israel Nathaniel Imperial said the President’s visit is extremely important and several areas of cooperation would be pursued.

“One of them is in labor cooperation. So we expect a bilateral labor agreement to be signed for caregivers,” Imperial said in an interview on Sunday.

“This hopefully will ensure that the exploitative placement fees that are being charged to our workers would be substantially reduced, if not, eliminated. It will be a government to government agreement. So private recruitment agencies will no longer be involved in the recruitment process,” he explained.

Other agenda to be discussed are Israel’s innovation and advanced software and technology, economic sphere and defense procurement.

“So I think the President wants to improve our economic relationship, especially the areas of trade and investment. And we expect around 13 to 15 bilateral private sector agreements to be signed. There will be a business forum for the business delegation and the President will be keynoting this event during his visit here in Israel,” he said.

He added that Duterte will meet around 1,400 overseas Filipino workers shortly after his arrival in Israel.

Imperial said Duterte will be the “first Philippine president to visit Israel in the 61 years of our diplomatic relations, ever since diplomatic relations were established in 1957.”

Duterte left the country on Sunday for his week-long official visits in Israel and Jordan. Ella Dionisio/DMS