Reza Mahmud :
The government of Bangladesh has chalked out a plan to increase per head remittance by creating and sending skilled workers abroad with proper training and diversifying labour market.
Secretary of the Ministry of the Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment, Dr. Ahmed Munirus Salehin said it in an exclusive interview on Wednesday afternoon with The New Nation.
The Secretary focused on different side of the migration sector, which is one of the highest foreign currency earner sectors of the country.
Dr. Munirus Salehin said, the government wants to search and introduce new labour markets abroad shunning dependency on any specific country or region in this regards.
As an example, he said, Malaysia is a major labour market for our manpower.
But it is not the lone market and we have to discover new markets as our workers have proved their skills to work better than others.
He said, Central Asian countries Like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, European countries including Italy, Romania, Bosnia and others and several countries in Africa and other regions are gradually opening their doors for Bangladeshi manpower.
On the other hand, he said, the government has given importance on increasing per capita remittance.
The Secretary said, the Philippines, Pakistan or Nepal earned remittance many more than Bangladesh does, even sending fewer workers than us because their per capita remittance is higher than our ones. Data shows that Bangladesh earned USD 23 billion remittance in 2021 by about 13 million expatriates. Contrarily, the Philippines earned USD 36 billion in the same year sending fewer migrants.
As per World Bank data, a Bangladeshi diaspora earns USD 203 per month while, a Philipino migrant worker earn USD 564.1 and a Pakistani expatriate worker earn USD 275.74 per month.
The Expatriates’ Welfare Secretary has said that the ministry has focused the matter with utmost importance.
“We made a plan of giving effective trainings to our worker before sending abroad so that they can earn more than the present,” the Secretary said.
He said that the government will take strong step on bargaining so that our workers get the highest possible wages in the respective countries.
The secretary said that the government would be strict on ensuring minimum wage and other conditions so that the migrant workers may not suffer after going to the country for nominal inconvenience.
He said that the government would do everything as expatriates’ friendly one.”The government wants to send quality workers to hike the remittance. Dr. Munirus Salehin said that after getting the post of secretary in the ministry, more than six lakh workers had been abroad in 2021.
In November of the year, about one lakh and two thousand workers migrated to different countries.
Besides, one lakh 32 thousand workers were also sent abroad in December alone as a record number amid the worldwide pandemic, he noted.
The Expatriate Secretary said manpower exporting might not be continued as a speedy pace. It may be ups and down as per the demands of host countries.
Besides, he said, the covid pandemic created a big challenge in this sector.
“But we have some vital privileges as like our workers are hard labourer and honest. On the other hand, they used to be satisfied even getting comparatively low wages, it is our weakness as well a privilege also, he said.
About syndication of recruiting agencies in Malaysia, the secretary said there are no options of forming a syndicate as per the MoU signed by the both governments.
“We have sent all of our 1,520 international recruiting agencies’ names to Malaysia’s Human Resources Ministry as per the MoU.”
“Now, the Malaysian government will choose agencies from the list automatically as per, fairness, maintenance and transparency. This are the provisions of the MoU,” he said.
The secretary said that we would not touch anything beyond the MoU.
