Staff Reporter :
Bangladesh is expecting the reopening of the Malaysian labour market soon after holding a high-level bilateral meeting in the capital Dhaka on June 2.
To remove the barrier on the way to the labour market, Malaysian Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M Saravanan will arrive in Dhaka on June 1 and attend a meeting with Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment and the concerned stakeholders.
The respective persons in this sector said that as the meeting will take place between the high level officials of the two countries, there is a hope of reopening Malaysian labour market for the Bangladeshi workers.
Both the countries signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on June 19 last year after the closure of the labour market three years ago. The deal has shed some light on sending Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia.
But there lies a hindrance in the way to receiving manpower from Bangladesh because Malaysian government has imposed a condition while taking workers.
It said that Malaysia will accept workers through 25 selected recruiting agencies. M Saravanan informed it through a letter to the Bangladeshi Expatriate Minister Imran Ahmad.
But Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) has sharply reaction against the condition of the Malaysian government.
They said, all the eligible recruiting agents should be allowed to send workers to Malaysia. They also said that such condition creates a syndicate system.
The recruiting agents said they don’t accept such syndicate because the labour market in Malaysia was shut down for three years due to such syndicate system.
BAIRA also pointed out that the Malaysian condition is not at all acceptable because they did not tag such condition for 13 other countries.
In replying to the letter of Malaysian Human Resources Minister, Expatriate Minister Imran Ahmad said, Bangladesh was not agreed with their condition.
Under such circumstances, the labour market in Malaysia has become unstable.
A section of BAIRA leaders last month held a press conference in the capital and said, “Syndication will create irregularities and corruption. It will also increase the immigration costs. Many will be deprived. There will be anarchy in the labour market.”
They also said, as an independent country, it would be disgraceful for Bangladesh to take workers only through the syndicate.
