Bangladesh will continue exploring the overseas labour market in Oman this year, as the Gulf economy has started overcoming the impact of Covid-19 with the launching of different development projects involving several billion US dollars.
“Oman is an important labour market to Bangladeshi expats and this country will also continue to remain vibrant this year as the Gulf country has started implementing a number of development projects,” said the Acting Ambassador of Oman Maushumi Rahman while talking to the Dhaka Tribune this week.
According to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), Bangladesh exported a total of around 1.6 million workers to Oman during the period of 1976-2021, sharing 11.6% of the country’s total manpower export to overseas markets during the same period.
Quoting Omani policy-makers and top business leaders, Maushumi Rahman said: “Oman recalls the role of expatriate Bangladeshis in the development process of the Gulf country over the years.”
KSA is the largest labour market for Bangladeshi expats as of now. The country exported 46,68,542 workers to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during the 1976-2021 period, sharing 34.3% of the total labour market.
Maushumi Rahman, a career diplomat of the Bangladesh Civil Service, said that more than six lakh expatriate Bangladeshis are living currently in Oman and engaged in different sectors. As the gulf economy has started getting back on track, she said the labour market of Oman to Bangladeshis will remain lucrative in 2022.
The diplomat said: “We think the Sultanate will remain as a major destination of Bangladeshi expatriate workers in 2022. Our expatriate workers, through their sincerity, modesty and hard work, have established a good impression on the Omani employers and their aptitude to pick up Arabic quickly and ability to muster the skills required for all kinds of jobs made them particularly popular amongst the Omanis.”
She said that the constant campaigns of the embassy have encouraged many Omani employers in remote places of the Sultanate to recruit workers from Bangladesh.
“Despite the situation due to Covid-19, the flow of workers from Bangladesh to Oman never stopped, we brought around 60,000 workers in the last one year (2021), and the trend is likely to remain the same in 2022,” she added.
According to Oman Economy Minister Dr Said Al Saqri, the country’s economy is expected to grow by about 5.8% in 2022.