KUALA LUMPUR: Bangladesh is pushing the Malaysian government to recognize the South Asian country as a potential source for migrant workers in an effort to boost its economy and workforce abroad. Bangladesh's Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Secretary Zafar Ahmed Khan has asked Malaysia to recognize Dhaka and its workers in order to reduce the red tape often associated with migrant workers heading to Malaysia. He argued that the Southeast Asian country needs some 500,000 workers to help in the agriculture, construction and manufacturing sectors and added that Bangladesh could be a major source for such efforts. “We want Bangladesh to be recognized as a source country. If the provisions are made, we'll be able to send workers to Malaysia regularly,” he told United News of Bangladesh news agency. The Malaysian government wants to recruit workers under a government-to-government arrangement instead of recruiting through private companies, he said. “We think the involvement of the private sector can be gradually achieved once the government-to-government recruitment process is kicked off,” he added. There are already a large number of Bangladeshis in Malaysia for work, but Dhaka hopes they can boost the number of workers in the country in the near future. One Bangladeshi foreign ministry official told Bikyamasr.com on Friday via telephone that “we hope this will help create a mutual goal of developing economies and boosting the employment of individuals.”
