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Europe, Asia must work together to tackle youth unemployment: Young Leaders Summit

Xinhua, November 3, 2015 Adjust font size:

Lxuembourg's minister of Foreign and European affairs Jean Asselborn has highlighted the importance of collaboration between European and Asian countries especially in combating youth unemployment.

He made the remarks in the opening speech at the Asia-Europe Foundation's Young Leaders Summit, which is dedicated to the challenges that Eurasia is facing and the opportunities available for cooperation in the areas of job creation, mobility and social cohesion.

The Young Leaders Summit runs until Nov. 5 in Luxembourg and is held in conjunction with the 12th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) of foreign ministers.

This summit is held under the theme "entrepreneurship and youth employment" and brings together influential people from political, economic and academic circles with young people aged 18-30 years from the ASEM member countries to lay the foundations for a "dynamic and constructive" dialogue on topics of entrepreneurship and job creation, according to a statement from the Luxembourg government.

"The current generation of young people is facing a set of particularly difficult circumstances. The exit from the economic crisis remains very slow, and labor market conditions are still difficult," the Luxembourg government statement said. "Asia and Europe are facing similar situations with regard to the large number of young unemployed people."

Luxembourg's national education and youth minister Claude Meisch said it was vital that schools encourage young people to develop their initiative, creativity and entrepreneurship.

He said schools should give young people the opportunity to find out what it means to be an entrepreneur, setting the groundwork that will enable young people to continue learning through their life.

Meisch also stressed that it is no longer true that the acquisition of knowledge is mainly done at school and the place where that knowledge is applied is primarily the workplace. Formal and informal education must combine to ensure the inclusion of all children and young people, regardless of their social, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, he said. Endit