Monday, February 25, 2013

After Malaysia, Bahrain is now interested to recruit people from Bangladesh under state arrangements, said Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain yesterday.

If the discussion with the Bahrain government is successful, he added, it will be possible to “reduce the cost of migration� to the country and ensure transparency in recruitment.

Around 15,000 to 20,000 Bangladeshi workers will be able to go to Bahrain legally every year, Mosharraf said while speaking to reporters at his office in the capital.

The minister will sit with a three-member delegation from the island country to discuss the process in detail today.

Earlier, the Bangladesh government signed an agreement with the Malaysian government to send workers under a government-to-government process in November last year.

Accordingly, the government selected 10,000 workers, who will be sent to Malaysia to work in the plantation sector.

The move was taken to stop the intervention of middlemen and thus boost transparency.

The minister yesterday suggested the possibility of following the same procedure with Bahrain after a meeting with Nikolas Dendias, public order and citizen protection minister of Greece.

He urged the Greek minister to assist Bangladeshi people working in Greece in visa-related problems in the country.

Around 5,000 Bangladeshis are now working in Greece, said Mosharraf.

Of the United Arab Emirates’ restriction on the recruitment of Bangladeshis, he said, “We do not have any specific information about its plan to recruit our workers.â€�

In September last year, the UAE government imposed unofficial restrictions on the recruitment of Bangladeshi workers and the renewal of their visas.

The country later declared for the fourth time a general amnesty for illegal residents there, which ended on February 4.