Saudi Arabia is likely to open its door to Bangladeshi job- seekers following the visit of Expatriates' Welfare Minister for KSA next week, officials said.
The Minister for Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment (EWOE) Khandker Mosharraf Hossain has been invited to visit the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) on January 17.
During his 7-day visit, Mr Hossain will meet high officials including labour minister in the Middle East country to discuss manpower recruitment issues.
"We hope the Saudi market will be expanded for Bangladeshi workers through the upcoming visit," Khandakar Iftekhar Haidar, secretary to the EWOE told the FE.
He said the first priority of the visit is market expansion, the secretary also said.
Mr Haidar, also one of the members of delegation said the relation between the Bangladesh's expatriates' welfare minister and the labour minister of the KSA is very nice. "So we hope discussion of both sides will be fruitful and will help the market expansion".
The eight- member delegation led by the minister will also include director general of Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) Begum Shamsun Nahar, Abul Kalam Azad, senior secretary to the prime minister's office.
They will also discuss other issues such as protection and rights of the Bangladeshis working in the oil-rich country, the top ministry official mentioned.
Responding to a query he said the KSA did not close manpower recruitment from Bangladesh, but it reduced the number as a policy matter.
Replying to another question, the secretary said there is no alternative to manpower recruitment without government database as it is now a provision of the new law.
He, however, said if the visa trading is stopped migration cost will also be reduced. "We will seek cooperation from the Saudi government to reduce visa trading"
Presently, workers spend between Tk 0.67 million and Tk 1.6 million as migration cost to secure job in Saudi Arabia, a Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) report said.
Earlier, the KSA recruited more than 0.1 million workers a year. But it declined to about 10,000 from 2009 following a restriction imposed by the Saudi government.
KSA now is recruiting only domestic workers from Bangladesh. Some 32,137 female workers went to the KSA from 1991to 2014.
In last February, KSA allowed Bangladeshi workers to transfer the much-awaited Iqama and jobs facilities. For this Bangladeshis were benefited in many ways. Besides, nearly 0.8 million Bangladeshis availed amnesty announced by Saudi Arabia in 2013.
A total of 2.63 million Bangladeshis travelled to the KSA with jobs from 1976 to 2014, according to the BMET.
Besides, as per a statistic released by the KSA on August 29, 2012, India is the top labour sending country and Bangladesh is the second largest in Saudi Arabia. Currently around 2.0 million Indians are working in the KSA whereas the number of Bangladeshis is 1.5 million.
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