Bangladesh sent 28,71,705 workers with overseas jobs and received $ 76,604.38 million remittance between 2009 and December, 2014, said an official.
“Manpower export is a prospective sector and the government declared it as a thrust sector,” he said adding that the government has taken a realistic plan to send workers abroad with employment.
Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Engineer Khandker Mosharraf Hossain said that the government is expecting overseas employment for six to seven lakh more per year as the global economy recovering from its downturn.
He said the present government has sent workers to 160 countries as a result of its successful labour diplomacy.
“Efforts are underway to explore new labour markets all over the globe and the government has set up technical training centres at district headquarters to produce skilled and semi-skilled workers,” Mosharraf said.
He said the government has set up 47 vocational training centres, four institutes of marine technology across the country for imparting training to a large number of workers and a project is undertaken to set up over 400 upazila-level vocational training centres.
“We have reduced migration cost and provided necessary training to workers to send skilled manpower abroad and the remittance flow gradually increased,” the minister said.
According to the ministry sources, the present government has been able to send workers to 159 countries as a result of its successful labour diplomacy while the previous four-party alliance government had sent workers to only 69 countries.
Sources said Malaysia has legalised 2,67,803 unauthorised Bangladeshi workers there due to successful diplomatic measures taken by the present government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The most significant is that the country sent 4,20,612 workers along with 67,583 female workers abroad from January to December, 2014 receiving clearance from the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), it added.
