Saudi Arabia likely to resume recruitment of Bangladeshis

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FE Report Saudi Arabia may open recruitment of manpower from Bangladesh, Al-Hayat newspaper reported last Tuesday. The Kingdom's ministry's undersecretary for international affairs Dr. Ahmed Al-Fihaid has been reported by the newspaper to have said, "a special committee has been established to study the resumption of manpower from Bangladesh, the committee will study the criminal records of Bangladeshi workers to ensure that they are clean before reopening the doors for recruitment." Meanwhile, the Saudi-Bangladeshi joint commission, the report added, wound up last Monday a meeting in Riyadh, discussing a number of political, security, commercial and other issues. "During the meeting the Bangladeshi side pledged to protect Saudi citizens in Bangladesh and said their government was giving top priority to this responsibility. "The pledge was made following the killing of the second secretary at the Saudi Embassy in Dhaka Khalaf Al-Ali in March 2012," according to the report. It pointed out that five Bangladeshis charged with the murder were sentenced to death. "Representatives of a number of Saudi ministries attended the meeting. They included the ministries of interior, foreign affairs, labor, health, agriculture and others. The meeting called for reactivating the security agreement signed between the two countries, including exchanging security data and solving the problem of Bangladeshi overstayers in the Kingdom," the report said. It added: "A source close to the meeting said the Saudi side asked Bangladesh to open its market so the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) could market its products there. "The Bangladeshi side asked the Kingdom to offer investment opportunities to businessmen from the country. "The two sides pledged to further cooperation in food security, combating trade fraud, facilitating trade exchange and other areas." Another report by Menafin adds from Jeddah: The Saudi ministry of labour is currently studying lifting of a partial ban on workers' recruitment from Bangladesh. "Approximately 2.0 million Bangladeshi nationals are working in the Kingdom. Saudi Arabia recruited about 150,000 Bangladeshis each year until 2008, according to a statement of that country's Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training. Following a ban on hiring of workers in the housing and agricultural sectors in 2008, the annual average of Saudi recruitments from there plummeted to around 10,000," the report added. After issuing the ban order, then-Labor Minister Ghazi Al-Gosaibi said, "Their hiring would be restricted to medical and engineering fields. However, there will be an exception for the jobs in the maintenance and cleaning sectors with the condition that their percentage in all the sectors should not exceed 20 percent." It was also reported then that Bangladeshi workers got the biggest share -- 23.5 per-cent of the 1.5 million -- of Saudi visas issued in 2007. The report further added: "Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh urged the Kingdom to increase the import of manpower from her country to Saudi Arabia when Shoura Council Chairman Abdullah Al-Asheikh visited her in Dhaka early last month. Sheikh Hasina also called upon the Saudi government to invest more in her country's industrial and business sector for mutual benefits of the two countries in the meeting with Al-Asheikh. Bangladeshi Minister of Labor, Employment, Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, said in a recent statement that his government had taken steps, including the registration of overseas workers and issuance of a smart card, to ensure anyone with a criminal background cannot work abroad." "A spokesman for Bangladeshi labour ministry acknowledged earlier that some Bangladeshis in Saudi Arabia were engaged in illegal activities such as claiming shops illegally, selling banned CDs, running illegal telephone businesses, stealing manhole covers from roads and footpaths, stealing electricity and telephone cables, and printing fake currency. "In 2011, Bangladeshi media reported quoting their labour minister that the Kingdom decided to recruit four categories of workers -- housemaids, house drivers, security guards and gardeners -- from that country. The minister made the statement after meeting with the Saudi Arabian National Recruitment Committee, which signed a memorandum of understanding with its Bangladeshi counterpart Baira, pledging to cooperate with each other in protecting the migrants' interests," it said.