Reza Mahmud :
Around one lakh Bangladeshi workers are now unemployed in Bahrain due to ongoing economic depression of the country.
Experts and expatriate Bangladeshis in Bahrain said the tiny Arab country is now facing huge economic depression after the Qatar crisis developed.
They said that a significant portion of Bahrain economy was depended on its rich neighboring country Qatar which is now paralised over the gulf political crisis started four months back.
“For the last decades, the shops and markets of Bahrain were dependent on the buyers coming from m Qatar. The Qatari people used to travel Bahrain regularly to buy various products from there. But after boycotting Qatar by Bahrain with the leading Arab country Saudi Arabia alongside United Arab Emirates and Egypt, the economic crisis has been created there,” Iqramul Islam, a long time Bangladeshi expatriate in Manama, told The New Nation recently.
Iqramul Islam came to Dhaka one month ago to enjoy his yearly vacation. He left the country last week. During a meeting with this reporter he described the struggling lives of expatriates in Bahrain.
Iqramul Islam said, “Around 50,000 Bangladeshi workers in Bahrain were unemployed for a long time. After the Gulf crisis on Qatar issue, the newly created economic recession pushes fresh one lakh Bangladeshi workers unemployed in the country.”
He also said, “Earlier, many people from Qatar regularly traveled to Bahrain. They used to buy huge quantities of burkha, cosmetics, clothing, jam, jelly, fruits and other products from different markets in Manama. After boycotting Qatar, the retails markets lost those Qatari consumers.
