Institutionalising manpower export: Oman shows the way
Thursday, 13 December 2007
Shahiduzzaman Khan
It's a good piece of news that Oman has lifted a ban on recruitment of Bangladeshi workers after 12 years and expressed the desire to recruit skilled workforce from the country. Oman is perhaps the first Middle Eastern country, which is keen to institutionalise manpower export from Bangladesh. It has prepared a draft memorandum of understanding (MoU) to be signed between the two brotherly countries soon. Oman has similar agreements with all Gulf States, India, Pakistan and Vietnam.
According to reports published in the media this week, an informal restriction was in place due to some unpleasant incidents that had occurred in Oman by some Bangladeshi workers. Now the situation has become normal. Oman Manpower Minister Dr Juma Bin Ali bin Juma who was on a visit to Dhaka said visa is open for all Bangladeshis to arrive in Oman. His country requires skilled manpower like doctors, engineers, technicians and other professionals. The Oman minister handed over the draft MoU to the foreign adviser for scrutiny. The MoU is expected to be signed shortly in Oman when the adviser will be visiting Muscat.
There is no denying that Dr Juma's visit has opened a "new door" in terms of bilateral relations as this is for the first time a minister from Oman visited Bangladesh. Bangladesh has a good number of skilled manpower to meet the requirement of Oman. Through signing of the draft MoU, the two countries would come close to an atmosphere of goodwill and friendship. Oman could be a strategic partner in terms of country's great source of skilled and semi-skilled workfore. Presently, some 130,000 Bangladeshis are employed in the tiny oil rich Gulf state. According to a statistics, 15,700 Bangladeshis went to Oman this year through various channels.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), another Middle Eastern destination for Bangladeshi job seekers, is planning to end hiring manpower from abroad through recruiting agencies. This will check exploitation of gullible workers who often fall victims to unscrupulous recruiting agents. The UAE Ministry of Labour, in cooperation with the counterpart ministries of other countries, will soon reach agreements to streamline the process of hiring of workers. The country has already informed the Bangladesh government of its plan to sign an additional protocol in this connection with Bangladesh to regulate the flow of workers.
The country-wise trend of manpower export reveals that the Middle-Eastern countries including the UAE are major overseas job markets for Bangladesh. Over 0.8 million Bangladeshis, including some 125,616 during the last eight months of the current year, have so far gone to the UAE with jobs. Bangladesh sent more than 542,000 workers abroad of whom 235,000 went to Malaysia this year. The country received US$ 5.78 billion (Tk 40,323 crore) in remittance until November 22. If the trend continues, the remittance flow is expected to exceed US$ 6.0 billion-mark.
Sustaining the remittance growth has become a major challenge for Bangladesh as the development dynamics in the Middle East has been changing fast, adopting the latest technologies and requiring highly skilled workers in almost all sectors. It needs to progressively change the country mix and increase skill level of its migrant workers to sustain its remittance growth. Since fiscal year 1999-2000, Bangladesh has received around 85 per cent of its remittance from only five countries - Saudi Arabia, the United States, United Kingdom, the UAE, and Kuwait. In the last fiscal year, these five countries accounted for more than $5.0 billion of the total remittance inflow of $5.98 billion. But, recently the development dynamics in the three Middle East countries has been changing rapidly, posing a threat to Bangladesh's manpower exports.
Most of the Middle Eastern countries including Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE can now be compared with any developed country and mere proficiency in Arabic is not enough to get jobs in those countries in the future. An adequate number of international-standard vocational and training institutes should be set up to groom the future workforce for the Middle East. Non-governmental organisations and private entrepreneurs can establish such institutes, which need to be affiliated with similar ones in the developed countries, with the government playing a facilitating role.
Meanwhile. the present caretaker administration has undertaken a seven-point strategy to ensure the well-being of the Bangladeshi workers abroad and expand the manpower-export market worldwide by removing the prevailing hurdles. The strategy includes exploring new manpower export markets in the Scandinavian, European and East European countries.
The plan also includes extension of the existing markets in the Middle-East, including Libya, enhancing skills in the English language, exporting manpower from Monga-affected areas, ensuring proper utilisation of remittances, ensuring strong monitoring to check fraud in manpower export, and working together with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the International Migration Organisation (IMO). The government has adopted the strategy, as it believes that the country's prime foreign currency earnings would come from the manpower-export sector.
The Indian Institute of Management recently conducted a research on 'making Bangladesh a leading manpower exporter: Chasing a dream of $30 billion annual migrant remittance by 2015'. According to the study report, Bangladesh has to target Spain, France, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, and Austria for manpower export on a priority basis as such countries have high remittance potential but low presence of Bangladeshis. The report said, in the short and medium terms, Bangladesh should target occupations such as agriculture professionals, clerical and secretarial jobs, accountant, technicians, chefs and caterers, carpenters, masons, drivers, and electricians. But, after establishing high-quality training institutes, the country should export doctors, nurses, financial experts, and managers in the long run, the report added.
It's a good piece of news that Oman has lifted a ban on recruitment of Bangladeshi workers after 12 years and expressed the desire to recruit skilled workforce from the country. Oman is perhaps the first Middle Eastern country, which is keen to institutionalise manpower export from Bangladesh. It has prepared a draft memorandum of understanding (MoU) to be signed between the two brotherly countries soon. Oman has similar agreements with all Gulf States, India, Pakistan and Vietnam.
According to reports published in the media this week, an informal restriction was in place due to some unpleasant incidents that had occurred in Oman by some Bangladeshi workers. Now the situation has become normal. Oman Manpower Minister Dr Juma Bin Ali bin Juma who was on a visit to Dhaka said visa is open for all Bangladeshis to arrive in Oman. His country requires skilled manpower like doctors, engineers, technicians and other professionals. The Oman minister handed over the draft MoU to the foreign adviser for scrutiny. The MoU is expected to be signed shortly in Oman when the adviser will be visiting Muscat.
There is no denying that Dr Juma's visit has opened a "new door" in terms of bilateral relations as this is for the first time a minister from Oman visited Bangladesh. Bangladesh has a good number of skilled manpower to meet the requirement of Oman. Through signing of the draft MoU, the two countries would come close to an atmosphere of goodwill and friendship. Oman could be a strategic partner in terms of country's great source of skilled and semi-skilled workfore. Presently, some 130,000 Bangladeshis are employed in the tiny oil rich Gulf state. According to a statistics, 15,700 Bangladeshis went to Oman this year through various channels.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), another Middle Eastern destination for Bangladeshi job seekers, is planning to end hiring manpower from abroad through recruiting agencies. This will check exploitation of gullible workers who often fall victims to unscrupulous recruiting agents. The UAE Ministry of Labour, in cooperation with the counterpart ministries of other countries, will soon reach agreements to streamline the process of hiring of workers. The country has already informed the Bangladesh government of its plan to sign an additional protocol in this connection with Bangladesh to regulate the flow of workers.
The country-wise trend of manpower export reveals that the Middle-Eastern countries including the UAE are major overseas job markets for Bangladesh. Over 0.8 million Bangladeshis, including some 125,616 during the last eight months of the current year, have so far gone to the UAE with jobs. Bangladesh sent more than 542,000 workers abroad of whom 235,000 went to Malaysia this year. The country received US$ 5.78 billion (Tk 40,323 crore) in remittance until November 22. If the trend continues, the remittance flow is expected to exceed US$ 6.0 billion-mark.
Sustaining the remittance growth has become a major challenge for Bangladesh as the development dynamics in the Middle East has been changing fast, adopting the latest technologies and requiring highly skilled workers in almost all sectors. It needs to progressively change the country mix and increase skill level of its migrant workers to sustain its remittance growth. Since fiscal year 1999-2000, Bangladesh has received around 85 per cent of its remittance from only five countries - Saudi Arabia, the United States, United Kingdom, the UAE, and Kuwait. In the last fiscal year, these five countries accounted for more than $5.0 billion of the total remittance inflow of $5.98 billion. But, recently the development dynamics in the three Middle East countries has been changing rapidly, posing a threat to Bangladesh's manpower exports.
Most of the Middle Eastern countries including Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE can now be compared with any developed country and mere proficiency in Arabic is not enough to get jobs in those countries in the future. An adequate number of international-standard vocational and training institutes should be set up to groom the future workforce for the Middle East. Non-governmental organisations and private entrepreneurs can establish such institutes, which need to be affiliated with similar ones in the developed countries, with the government playing a facilitating role.
Meanwhile. the present caretaker administration has undertaken a seven-point strategy to ensure the well-being of the Bangladeshi workers abroad and expand the manpower-export market worldwide by removing the prevailing hurdles. The strategy includes exploring new manpower export markets in the Scandinavian, European and East European countries.
The plan also includes extension of the existing markets in the Middle-East, including Libya, enhancing skills in the English language, exporting manpower from Monga-affected areas, ensuring proper utilisation of remittances, ensuring strong monitoring to check fraud in manpower export, and working together with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the International Migration Organisation (IMO). The government has adopted the strategy, as it believes that the country's prime foreign currency earnings would come from the manpower-export sector.
The Indian Institute of Management recently conducted a research on 'making Bangladesh a leading manpower exporter: Chasing a dream of $30 billion annual migrant remittance by 2015'. According to the study report, Bangladesh has to target Spain, France, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, and Austria for manpower export on a priority basis as such countries have high remittance potential but low presence of Bangladeshis. The report said, in the short and medium terms, Bangladesh should target occupations such as agriculture professionals, clerical and secretarial jobs, accountant, technicians, chefs and caterers, carpenters, masons, drivers, and electricians. But, after establishing high-quality training institutes, the country should export doctors, nurses, financial experts, and managers in the long run, the report added.