Bahrain to recruit more Bangladeshis - Up to 20,000 to get jobs every year
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.” 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.
Source: The Daily Star
