Manpower export from Bangladesh
Malaysia opens market in 2 weeks
RAFIQUL ISLAM AZAD
Bangladeshi workers are likely to start going to Malaysia through formal channels after a couple of weeks under a new inter-governmental agreement. The new agreement will open up formal channels for the countrys manpower to enter Malaysias labour market.
Malaysia, under the Government-to-Government (G2G) Plus agreement, will recruit Bangladeshi workers, primarily in the construction, plantation and manufacturing sectors.
A decision in this respect was taken at a bilateral meeting between Bangladeshs minister for expatriates welfare and overseas employment, Nurul Islam, and the visiting Malaysian minister for human resources, Datuk Seri Richard Riot Jaem, in Dhaka yesterday.
Talking to The Independent, Nurul Islam confirmed that his Malaysian counterpart has agreed to recruit Bangladeshi workers for Malaysia very soon. The first batch of Bangladeshi workers will go to Malaysia within the next 15 days, he said.
Asked as to how many workers would be sent to Malaysia in the first batch, he said the number is yet to be determined.
This would be the first batch of Bangladeshi workers who would be sent to Malaysia after about four years following the closure of formal channels for sending manpower to the second biggest manpower market for Bangladesh after Saudi Arabia, according to the sources in the ministry.
The Malaysian minister for human resources has expressed interest in importing manpower from Bangladesh very soon, said the sources.
The meeting, held at a hotel in the city in the afternoon, decided to send Bangladeshi workers through government-approved recruitment agencies at a fixed rate. The Malaysian minister led a nine-member delegation at the meeting. Malaysias high commissioner to Bangladesh, Nur Ashikin Binti Mohd Taib, was present at the meeting. Earlier, the Malaysian minister arrived in Dhaka around 10:30am.
Nurul Islam, who led a 10-member Bangladesh delegation, assured the Malaysian minister that the Bangladesh government was firm on stopping irregularities in exporting manpower to Malaysia. The secretary in charge of expatriates welfare and overseas employment, Begum Shamsun Nahar, was included in the Bangladeshi delegation.
The minister said Bangladesh considered Malaysia a potential labour market and was ready to send skilled and semi-skilled manpower. He said the manpower would be sent to Malaysia through 745 well-known and established manpower agencies. The opportunity would not be given to a limited number of agencies, he added. This would reduce the cost of migrant workers and they can be sent at rates fixed by the government, he added.
Malaysia froze recruitment from Bangladesh in early 2009 following massive irregularities. In late 2012, the country began labour recruitment on a limited scale, but it did not work allegedly due to the influence of recruitment agents supported by vested groups in both the countries.
On February 18, Bangladesh and Malaysia signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the G2G plus system to take in 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers to the southeast Asian nation over the next three years.
Under the MoU with Malaysia, Bangladesh is considered a source country, and the other party will recruit this vast manpower in its service, construction, agriculture and manufacturing sectors. Malaysian employers will bear the cost of workers security deposits, levies, visa fees, and health and compensation insurance.
At present, Malaysia is home to around 600,000 Bangladeshis workers. Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia remitted around USD 38,356 million in the last fiscal year. A total of 38,384 Bangladeshi migrants has gone to the country as of October 13 this year, according to the ministry.
