Bangladesh on Tuesday evening signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Saudi Arabia to send 120,000 workers every year under 12 categories.
Secretary to the Expatriates’ Welfare Ministry Khandaker Md Iftekhar Haider and Saudi Deputy Minister of Labour for International Affairs Ahmad Bin Fahad Al Fuhaid signed the agreement on behalf of their respective sides.
Earlier this month, the Ministry of Labor of United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced that they will soon overturn a two-year-old ban on the recruitment of Bangladeshi manpower, and will allow private companies to hire nationals from the country.
This measure comes after a visit to Saudi Arabia last week by Bangladesh’s Labor Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, who announced the country’s completion of all recruitment requirements set by the Saudi Ministry of Labor in this regard, sources said.
During their recent talks, the Labor Minister Mosharraf Hossain and Saudi Labor Minister Adel Fakeih talked about the development of the recruitment system in the Kingdom. As part of the joint efforts, both sides stated that Bangladeshi workers would have certain levels of skills, labor culture and knowledge of labor laws prevailing in the Kingdom, the paper said.
According to the Bangladeshi official, the country has set up a center for manpower. The center will streamline the recruitment process with Saudi Arabia, and has a database with nearly 2.2 million workers, which is currently used to send manpower to other countries such as Malaysia, South Korea and Hong Kong.
