Expatriate Welfare Bank operations begin Apr 20

FE Team | Published: March 03, 2011 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

The government has a plan to formally begin the operations of Expatriate Welfare Bank on April 20, the day when the fourth ministerial level conference of Colombo Process would be inaugurated, reports BSS. This was disclosed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the Jatiya Sangsad (JS) or parliament while replying to a question of treasury bench member Junaid Ahmed Palak during the Prime Minister's question-answer session. Sheikh Hasina said the JS enacted the Expatriate Welfare Bank Bill on October 04 last year and the banking and financial institution division of the ministry of finance (MoF) has already constituted the board of directors for the bank. She said the expatriate welfare bank will provide financial support to the unemployed youths intending to go abroad for jobs, encourage them to invest in Bangladesh and send remittance smoothly by using modern information technology (IT) and arrange employments for the returning expatriate Bangladeshis. Besides, the Prime Minister said her government has been looking for new destinations for overseas job opportunities for the Bangladeshi manpower abroad. Five top-level government delegations have been constituted for searching jobs markets for Bangladeshi manpower, she added while stating that they will soon visit different countries in Europe, Africa and Australia for this purpose. Sheikh Hasina said her government has undertaken a project to set up a new technical training centre in each district to build skilled labour force for sending more manpower abroad. Apart from the existing 38 technical training centres, two projects have been taken up to set up 30 more technical training institutions and five marine institutes in the country, she added. UNB adds: In reply to another question by Begum Meher Afrooz (Awami League-Gazipur), she said that the government collected revenue worth Tk15.53 billion (1,552.88 crore) from Value Added Tax (VAT) paid by the business organisations in 2009-10 fiscal. She furthermore informed that the government would take steps to appoint dealers of Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) at every union. Replying to a written question of Shafiqul Islam (Sirajganj-4), she said since assumption of power, her government has been working to turn TCB into a strong and dynamic organization. After making the TCB as financially and administratively self-reliant, steps would be taken to appoint dealers at every union, she said. The Prime Minister said at present three to six dealers are appointed at every ward of upazilas, districts and city corporations.