JAKARTA ~ The central government is to send 400 nurses to Japan in August to help the rapidly ageing country deal with a shortage of healthcare workers, state media said on Tuesday.

The workers would be the first Indonesian nurses sent en masse to Japan, which traditionally sources many of its foreign nurses from the Philippines, Japanese consul Masaro Sato was quoted as saying by the Antara news agency.

The agreement for 400 nurses is higher than the 200 per year originally set out in a Japan-Indonesia free trade deal inked last August.

“We are giving priority to nurses from Indonesia rather than from the Philippines because Japan and Indonesia share many similarities such as cultural diversity,” Sato said.

The nurses, who would be required to have a minimum two years’ experience, would work in Japanese hospitals, Sato said.

On top of the demand for nurses, Sato said Japan required 600 carers and that “hundreds” would be sent from Indonesia next month.