The government, for the first time, has taken a move to prepare comprehensive data by compiling profiles of foreigners working with different commercial and industrial units in the country.
The move has been taken, as the number of foreigners working with the country's different types of commercial and trade organisations has increased sharply amid concerns that they are diminishing job prospect of the locals.
A high official at the Special Branch (SB) office said nearly 400,000 foreigners were now working in the country and more than 100,000 of them did not have any work permit.
Most of the foreigners hail from India, according to sources familiar with the development.
Citizens from Pakistan and Sri Lanka are also dominating different service sectors. They have been employed by local, joint-venture or cent per cent foreign companies.
A significant number of foreigners hailing from China, South Korea, Palestine and Taiwan are also residing here, the sources have hinted.
Citizens from Ghana and Nigeria are also reportedly living both legally and illegally in the country, the people familiar with the development have told the FE.
They have also said citizens from European countries are, however, residing here legally.
Sources told the FE that the foreign people had been remitting out a substantial amount of money in foreign currencies each month affecting the balance of payment (BOP). The volume of outbound payments was on the rise as is evident in the BOP.
The outbound payments went up by more than 16 per cent to US$ 3.48 billion during the last July-December period from that of the corresponding period a year earlier, according to the sources.
The country's media many times reported that a number of firms were involved in money laundering by employing such a type of foreigners.
A source said most of the foreigners entered Bangladesh on tourist visas and overstayed here taking jobs in violation of the related laws and without any work permit.
In many cases they marry local women to get the legal status for staying in the country.
The SB office in the city has asked the country's apex trade body to assist the security agency by giving detailed information about the foreign workers. The SB issued a letter in this connection to the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) on February 02 last.
The office has also asked the central bank, the insurance regulator, the textile mills association, garment manufacturers, shipping firms, freight forwarding organisations and the export processing zones authority to provide lists of the foreigners working with their member organisations.
It has also asked universities, colleges and schools for the same. The SB office noted that a large number of foreigners had been residing in the country with their family members.
The FBCCI, however, has asked some of its associations to give the detailed information about foreign workers in a prescribed form.
Kazi Akramuddin Ahmed, president of the FBCCI, told the FE: "We have received a letter from the police authority and I asked my officials to take action accordingly."
Mr. Ahmed, however, said: "I'm not concerned about the issue." But he said his office would work on it further.
However, the first aim of the government move was to regulate the status of those already working in the country.
"We want to compile the profiles of both legal and illegal foreigners," said a police source.
The data on the status of foreigners will help take policy measures.
Sources said a large number of foreigners had been working with shipping firms, freight forwarding agents, clothing factories, textile mills, clothing buyers' offices and other similar organisations.
A source at a foreign shipping firm said the foreigners were accessing the labour market in Bangladesh increasingly at the expense of locals, who were resultantly left with the entry-level jobs requiring low skills.
He said: "We don't blame people who are taking the opportunity to come here and work, but the locals should be given the priority."
A source at the SB office said that the foreigners were working illegally mainly in garment factories, buying houses, information technology and telecom industries, advertising agencies and restaurants.
Md Ali Mia, additional deputy inspector general of police, told the FE about the data: "We'll hopefully be able to complete the work within the next couple of months."
The police official said such a type of data would help trace legal immigrants and illegal immigrants.
However, the Board of Investment (BoI) in 2011 had formed an eight-member committee headed by the BoI executive chairman to make a list of legal and illegal foreigners staying in the country. But, an official said, the committee failed to prepare the list.
Around 1.0 million foreigners visit the country every year, according to the SB.
According to another FE report, a report in India's largest circulated technology magazine Siliconindia said that Bangladesh is the fifth highest source of annual remittance worth US$3.7 billion from Indian expatriates amongst the top 15 countries.
"A total of 500,000 Indians live and work in Bangladesh and they sent home last year as much as $3,716 million. Indian expats living in 15 countries have remitted a total of $57,233 million," the report said.
But Board of Investment (BoI) sources differed with the report saying that only 12,000 Indians are living in Bangladesh officially.
"The amount is absurd and baseless," the BoI official said preferring anonymity.
According to BoI, only around 12,000 foreign nationals are doing jobs in Bangladesh with work permits from the board.
A few thousand more foreigners are working in the country with permission from the Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority.
But there is no official figure on the number of foreign nationals working illegally in Bangladesh, BoI officials said.
Most of the Indian expats work in Bangladesh's burgeoning readymade garment and textile industries as well as in numerous NGOs (non-governmental organizations), the report said.
The Siliconindia gets help from yahoo survey which says that "Yahoo has listed out 16 of those countries that Indian expats send their money to their families in India, Bangladesh is the fifth among those countries".
Bangladesh is a developing country and is the eighth most populous nation in the world. It has been reported that there are about 500,000 Indians presently residing in Bangladesh.
People who are migrating to Bangladesh illegally are from West Bengal, Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura and Mizoram.
Most of the Indian nationals go to Bangladesh in search of job opportunities and mostly work in NGOs, garments and textile industries, the yahoo survey said.
Meanwhile, most of the foreign workers in Bangladesh are allegedly hiding their actual income and evading taxes.
Foreign nationals working in Bangladesh and their local employers prepare two sets of appointment letters - one for obtaining work permit in which they show less salary and another for official purposes which is the main appointment letter, officials said.
Following the allegation and intelligence report the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) in October 2013 asked the BoI and the NBR to take appropriate measures to prevent tax evasion by the foreign nationals working in different sectors, including readymade garment factories, buying houses, liaison offices and other domestic and foreign companies.
The PMO also forwarded an intelligence report which identified some cases in which foreign workers were receiving three or four times the amount mentioned in the work permit.
The BoI last month held a high-level meeting to identify illegal foreign workers employed in Bangladesh.
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