Staff Reporter: The United Arab Emirates, the second larger manpower importer from Bangladesh, has warned migrant-sending countries, of imposing strict future restrictions on recruitment if they refuse to take back their citizens during this coronavirus pandemic across the world. The UAE embassy in Dhaka on Tuesday said through a statement that their country is considering several options to reshuffle its cooperation and labour relations with those countries which are refusing to bring back their citizens working in the UAE. The wealthy Arab state has 10 million of population nearly 90 percent of them are migrants workers mostly from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Philippines, Egypt and Iran. About 700,000 Bangladeshi expatriates are also working the country. The statement said that their Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation are taking this measures are including imposing strict future restrictions on the recruitment of workers from these countries and activating the “quota” system in recruitment operations. The options also include suspending memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the ministry and concerned authorities in these countries. UAE had been recruiting Bangladeshis mainly for domestic services until the Covid-19 pandemic began, but there have been talks for opening up the labour market for all sectors. Mohamed Thani Murshid Al-Rumaithi, president of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of the UAE, has stressed that the federation will reconsider its relations with countries that refuse to receive their nationals who have taken leaves and want to return to their countries, the statement said. Contacted, a foreign ministry official of Bangladesh said the government was not informed of any such decision from UAE.
