Hasina to explore job market in Malaysia

ANIS ALAMGIR

Is Malaysia going to open its job market for Bangladeshi workers? It's a million dollar question for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina when she visits Malaysia from May 18. The Prime Minister left Dhaka yesterday for Seoul from there she would reach Kuala Lumpur.
Though she will join an international conference in Malaysia-the sixth World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) - the Bangladesh leader is also scheduled to meet her Malaysian counterpart Najib bin Razak in a bilateral meeting at the Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur. This is her first visit to Malaysia after establishing a new government in Dhaka.
Both manpower exporters and workers of Bangladesh are eagerly waiting to see if there is any positive outcome on the Bangladeshi labour issue in her Malaysia visit but the perspectives of workers and exporters are different.
Different sources from Malaysia said that Bangladeshi workers living there are interested to see legalisation of their status as thousands of them are living there as undocumented workers. Manpower exporters and their local agents, however, wonder whether there would be any initiative on calling visa while the government is under pressure to reopen the Malaysian labour market for providing jobs to millions of unemployed youths.
This is not the first meeting of the Bangladesh Prime Minister with her Malaysian counterpart. She had met Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in Spain last year on the sideline of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). She requested him to review the freeze on the intake of the Bangladeshi workers. But Najib clarified that the freeze was meant to avoid unscrupulous agents from exploiting foreign nationals in Malaysia.
In March 2009, the Malaysian Cabinet rejected work permits for 55,000 Bangladeshi workers who have yet to go to the Southeast Asian country. Malaysia had also decided to freeze the intake of Bangladeshi workers since October 2007 after the first similar scheme was lifted in 1999.
It is estimated that the number of Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia went up to 5,00,000 including those who went with work permits and without permits. The figure is one-sixth of the foreign workers in Malaysia.
The intake of Bangladeshi workers for Malaysia is perhaps the most lucrative business for the agents in both countries compared to intake from other countries.
Unofficially, one Bangladeshi ordinary worker has to pay Tk over 2,00,000 to get a job in Malaysia whereas in a worker from Nepal and other South Asian countries has to pay Tk 60,000 only.
Last year, the Malaysian government had officially announced that the country would not allow Bangladeshi workers into the country to make ways for locals to be employed in the agriculture sector, where a large number of Bangladeshis are working.
The Prime Minister will fly to the Malaysian capital on May 18 to join the WIEF on the next day.
She will speak at the inaugural function of the forum meeting where a large number of leaders from Islamic countries and around 200 leading businessmen will join.
Besides bilateral talks with the Malaysian Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina will have lunch and dinner on May 19 to be hosted by Najib bin Razak. On the same day, the chairman of the Islamic Economic Forum will call on Sheikh Hasina.
The Bangladesh Prime Minister will also hold meetings with Malaysian investors and the Bangladesh community in Malaysia separately.
She will leave Kuala Lumpur on May 20 and is expected to arrive in Dhaka on May 21.