Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has expressed her optimism that both sides would be able to devise ways to ensure the safe, regular, inexpensive and orderly employment of Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia.
"The Prime Minister gave assurance of her government to send Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia maintaining all necessary protocols, including vaccination and other formalities," reports BSS citing a press release.
She made the remarks on Thursday when visiting the Malaysian Minister of Human Resources Datuk Seri M. Saravanan paid a courtesy call on her at her official Ganabhaban residence in Dhaka.
Sheikh Hasina expressed deep satisfaction over the holding of the first meeting of the Joint Working Group under the auspices of the MoU on the employment of workers signed in December 2021 between the two countries.
The premier appreciated the decision of the Malaysian government to recruit Bangladeshi security personnel for non-military civilian use.
After the exchange of pleasantries, the prime minister welcomed the visiting Malaysian minister to Bangladesh in the year of the golden jubilee of diplomatic ties between the two countries.
She noted that the relationship stands on a solid base since Malaysia recognised Bangladesh immediately after its independence.
During the meeting, the Malaysian minister too expressed his satisfaction over the holding the ongoing Joint Working Group meeting.
He appraised the Bangladeshi premier about reorganisation of their Human Resource Ministry from the Ministry of Home Affairs and their domestic employment process following the ILO guidelines.
"We have taken a 5-Year Action Plan for the Migrant Workers,” he said. To this end, he mentioned, they have already increased the minimum wage to RM 1500.
In such a case, the Malaysian minister said that Bangladesh could earn US$45 billion in next 5 years with more than 500,000 expatriate workers in Malaysia.
Datuk Seri M. Saravanan said now they have digitised all employment processes so that every step protects the rights of the migrant workers.
Nothing that Malaysia only took online applications from the job-seekers, he said they have installed e-payment directly from the employers to the workers’ salary card account without keeping recruiting agencies in the middle
However, he expressed his deep concern over the chance of human trafficking as the implementation of the MoU signed between the two countries got delayed.