Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is set to negotiate with UAE Vice-President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum today to open up the country’s labour market to Bangladesh.
“We are still negotiating on the points of the joint statement to be signed tomorrow,” Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque told the Dhaka Tribune from Abu Dhabi yesterday evening.
Hasina arrived in Abu Dhabi on Saturday on a three-day bilateral visit following an invitation from the UAE prime minister.
“Both the prime ministers will have a substantial bilateral meeting tomorrow [today] where the issue will be resolved,” Shahidul said.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding with Amala, a UAE-based company, to send domestic workers to the gulf state.
UAE hosts over a million Bangladeshis who remit billions of dollars home every year.
The gulf state, however, stopped recruiting Bangladeshis in a mass since August 2012 following allegations that some were involved in criminal activities.
UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan called on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday and later held a bilateral meeting with Bangladesh Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali.
“Both foreign ministers agreed to sign three agreements,” the foreign secretary said adding, that they also discussed issues of mutual interest.
The respective agreements concern security cooperation, transfer of sentenced persons and handing over a plot to the UAE embassy in Dhaka, he said.
Meanwhile, the agreement between the BMET with Amala would pave the way to send domestic workers to the gulf state.
“The MoU between BMET and Amala has already been signed,” Expatriates’ Welfare Secretary Khandoker Showkat Hossain told the Dhaka Tribune over the phone from UAE yesterday.
A three-member delegation, led by Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, accompanied the prime minister.
A senior official at the Expatriates’ Welfare Ministry said Amala was an agency under the Interior Ministry of the UAE and will place the requirement for female workers.
While preparing the draft agreement, Amala had verbally made a request for 1,000 housemaids, he said, adding that they had agreed to send 200 workers.
As per the agreement, Amala would ask the employers to place demands for housemaids and later would inform the BMET about it.
The official said aspirant female migrants would be able to go to the UAE free of cost and one would get Tk18,000 a month while the experienced female migrants would draw Tk20,000.
The official said a fresh data-base of female migrants would be created and advertisements would be published to register female migrants, the official added.
According to BMET website, 54,878 female workers went to different countries, including the UAE, Jordan, Lebanon and Oman, between January and September this year.
Of them, 16,691 female workers went to the UAE during the period.
Hasina visited UAE in 2009 and 2011 to attend two multilateral events and met her counterpart at two sidelines events. The last bilateral visit took place in 2006.
She is scheduled to return to Dhaka today.
