The economy of Bangladesh heavily relies on the inflow of remittance from our overseas workers, and the Bangladesh Bank has aptly taken measures to increase this inflow.
But the steps taken are not enough. As it stands, a majority of our remittance comes from Middle Eastern countries, and the consequences of relying on this single group of countries are well known. It is time the administration starts looking toward other countries for the inflow of remittance.
The Middle East relies on cheap labour and long hours, something that makes the manpower from Bangladesh very attractive. But due to this very reason, our workers are not only making less but are also having to deal with rampant abuse from unscrupulous employers as well. There is also documented evidence of our workers being mentally, physically, and sexually abused in these regions.
As our country steadily heads towards middle income status, we will also need to increase our remittance inflow manifold. As such, diversification is the only sustainable solution. This will not only increase our remittance inflow, but it will also increase our bargaining power with other countries, especially existing manpower destinations. This would further enable us to protect our workers from the expected fraudulence and scope for abuse associated with this field.
The government needs to work on setting up projects for this diversification. We already have government-sponsored linguistic institutions that offer foreign language training, such as Korean, but more of such opportunities must be offered.
Focusing on propping up our overseas workforce to be more skills-based and less labour-based would go the extra mile to that end.