The Malaysian government has decided to open its labour market for Bangladeshi workers who will be recruited on government-to-government (G to G) basis, said the visiting Malaysian Minister for Human Resources, Datuk Seri Subramaniam, on Thursday
‘Our government has decided to recruit workers from Bangladesh…The mechanism of recruitment will be on the G to G basis,’ he told reporters at a press conference in Probashi Kalyan Bhaban after a bilateral meeting with the Bangladesh government.
Engineer Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, labour and employment and expatriates welfare and overseas employment minister, was present at the press conference.
Subramaniam said that his government would sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Bangladesh government after discussion and ‘then the real process of recruitment will take place’.
In reply to a question, he said that they had decided to recruit workers on the ‘G to G’ basis as they want to minimize the role of middlemen in Bangladesh.
He said that his country would recruit some 5,00,000 workers and his government has already started the process of legalizing the illegal Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia.
Subramaniam said that the foreign workers would be engaged mainly in the plantation and manufacturing sectors.
Replying to another question on fake recruiting companies, he said that his Ministry of Human Resources would contrive a mechanism to verify the authenticity of the Malaysian employers who want foreign workers.
Mosharraf Hossain said that during the meeting, both parties signed ‘agreed minutes’ about recruitment of Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia. The MoU could not be signed on Thursday as Malaysia needed to pass it in their Parliament before signing, he said.
‘Malaysia will declare Bangladesh as its source country after signing the MoU,’ said Mosharraf, adding that the signing of the MoU will need 30 to 45 days more.
As per the agreed minutes, he said that Bangladeshi workers would be sent to Malaysia on the G to G basis to prevent the involvement of middlemen. ‘Migration cost to go Malaysia will be Tk 30,000 to 40,000 per person,’ he said.
Mosharraf Hossain said the aspirant workers will need to be registered online first and then they will be selected and processed for being sent to Malaysia. They will be registered district-wise as per the category of skills so that equity will be maintained, he said.
‘Without registration nobody will be allowed to go Malaysia,’ he said, adding that aspirants could be registered online at the union information centres and in the 64 district offices of the expatriate ministry.
Terming Malaysia as a friendly country, the minister said that it had decided to legalise some 2,67,000 illegal Bangladeshi workers and the Bangladeshi government has started sending machine readable passports to them.
As per the contract, Malaysia will recruit workers for five years, and may extend their tenure after completion of five years, he said.