Saudi assurance on manpower export

The manpower export is the single largest source, in net terms, of the country's foreign exchange earnings. Its value addition is 100 per cent and it has been providing overseas job opportunities to the millions of otherwise unemployed people. The policy-makers do know the importance of remittance money in the national economy; even a moderate decline in its regular flow has all the potential for causing enough of headache to them. Fortunately, the country's remittance earning was growing consistently for nearly four decades.
But the pace of remittance earning growth has slowed down in recent years, primarily because of the substantial decline in recruitment of Bangladeshi workers by a number of Gulf countries, including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The KSA has so far absorbed the largest number -- 2.63 million between 1976 and 2014 -- of the Bangladeshi workforce abroad. The Kingdom, according to a report published in this paper last Monday, used to recruit about 100,000 Bangladesh workers on an annual average basis between 1997 and 2008. After that period, the annual flow to this Gulf country has recorded a marked fall and hardly 10,000 Bangladeshis are now recruited there annually.
The situation remains the same in the case of the United Arab Emirates. After a long gap, Kuwait has only recently withdrawn the freeze on recruitment of Bangladeshi workers. Unfortunately, Bangladesh is one of the very few countries, the workers of which are facing difficulty in entering the job markets in most Arab countries. Low skill is a problem, no doubt. But this is not the sole or major reason. Illegal stay and alleged involvement in criminal activities are cited as the prime reasons for which the authorities in these countries are reportedly opposing any fresh entry of Bangladeshi workers.   
The government has taken due note of the sharp fall in recruitment of Bangladeshis by the KSA and contacted the authorities concerned there to help reverse the situation. A number of official delegations at different levels have in the meanwhile visited the Saudi capital in this connection. Barring some assurances, no tangible result, however, is yet to come. A high-level Saudi delegation had also come to Bangladesh sometime back. The head of the delegation divulged a plan of his government to recruit a good number of Bangladeshi workers, including female ones. But that plan remains yet to be executed. Very recently, the Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister of Bangladesh went to the KSA in a bid to bring a change in the stance of authorities there. Back home, the minister sounded positive as he told the media that the labour minister of that country had assured him of resuming recruitment of Bangladeshi 'skilled' workers soon. Moreover, the two countries have reportedly decided to form a joint consultative committee to discuss migration process and the issues of workers' welfare from time to time.
All concerned would now expect that Bangladesh would soon be able to export enough of its skilled manpower to the KSA. But there are also reasons to be somewhat sceptical about the prospects, for there has been a serious dearth of efforts to produce skilled manpower up to the requirement of the export markets. The proposed joint consultative committee, if constituted, should move pro-actively to help overcome such scepticism. The two countries will have to resolve problems that might come up from time to time, through discussions about specific categories of skilled manpower and appropriate follow-up actions for the purpose.