Malaysia likely to lift ban on Bangladeshi workers

Malaysia is set to lift the ban on some 55,000 Bangladeshi jobseekers waiting for jobs there, said the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment minister, Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain, on Thursday.
The Malaysian government on March 10 cancelled the visas of more than 55,000 Bangladeshi workers on the plea of the adverse impact of the global economic recession.
‘I have come to know that the Malaysian parliament discussed the issue on Wednesday and gave a positive response to the proposal to lift the ban on Bangladeshi workers. I think lifting the ban is now a matter of time,’ Mosharraf told New Age.
The minister, however, said the Malaysian government has not yet formally announced its decision.
The foreign secretary, Touhid Hossain, said most of the Malaysian parliamentarians had favoured the cause of Bangladeshi workers when the issue was brought up for discussion on Wednesday.
He said Dhaka was waiting for an official announcement to this effect by the Malaysian government.
When asked whether Bangladesh would get a response from Malaysia next week, Touhid said the government had instructed its mission in Kuala Lumpur to contact the local authorities to get the latest information.
The foreign minister, Dipu Moni, and Mosharraf visited Malaysia in April and requested the authorities concerned to withdraw the restriction on Bangladeshi workers.
The Malaysian government in March ordered the visas for 55,147 Bangladeshis, approved in 2007, to be cancelled to stave off unemployment at home, which is expected to rise to 4.5 per cent this year from 3.7 per cent in 2008.
Malaysia’s home affairs minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said foreign labour was not needed because of the global economic crisis, adding that levies paid by Malaysian companies to recruit the workers would be refunded.
He also said the approval for visas was given in 2007. No new approvals, he added, had been given since then.
‘At the time when the visas for Bangladeshis were approved, there was a real need for foreign labour. But the employers took such a long time bringing them in that the recession had set in by then,’ said Hamid.
However, the Malaysian Employers’ Federation and other groups contend that foreign workers, who make up a fifth of the country’s workforce of 11 million, are still needed.
Together with an estimated one million illegal workers, the expatriates work mainly for plantations, construction sites, factories and restaurants. Malaysia stopped the intake of new foreign workers in the manufacturing and service sectors in January this year.
At present some 4,00,000 Bangladeshis still work in Malaysia, of whom 2,73,201 went there in 2007 and 1,31,762 in 2008. In 2006 the figure was only 20,467.
They have traditionally worked in factories, restaurants and filling stations, but many have now learnt to tap rubber and harvest palm oil.
Malaysia resumed recruiting Bangladeshi workers in August 2006 after an almost decade-long ban.

Courtesy of NewAgebd