A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was singed between Bangladesh and Malaysia on Thursday to send 15 lakh Bangladeshi workers to the county under the government to government plus (G2G plus) agreement.
Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister of Bangladesh Nurul Islam BSc and Human Resources Minister of Malaysia Dato Seri Richard Riot signed the MoU on behalf of their respective countries at a ceremony at the ministry in the morning.
After the signing of the deal, Nurul Islam BSc said Malaysia will recruit Bangladeshi workers in all sec-tors, including infrastructure, agriculture, plantation and manufacturing, adding the recruitment pro-cess will start very soon.
The total cost for going to Malaysia from Bangladesh through working visa has been fixed at Tk 34,000-37,000 per person while the majority portion of the cost will be carried by the employers, the minister added.
Answering to a question about the salaries of the workers, the minister said the wages will be fixed ac-cording to the rules and regulations of the International Labour Organization (ILO), a United Nations agency dealing with labour issues.
Nurul Islam said the minimum monthly salaries will be 900 MYR while in some cities like Sarawak the salary range will be minimum 800 MYR.
According to the deal, non-government recruiting agencies will also send workers to Malaysia alongside the government, the minister said.
However, during the recruitment process, a deal will be signed between the employers and the workers which will be attested by the High Commission of Dhaka in Kuala Lampur.
Replying to the questions of the reporters, Malaysian minister Dato Seri Richard Riot said the total pro-cess — from applying for visas
to getting visas — will be implemented through online in order to ensure fairness and transparency in the whole process.
On February 8, the Cabinet approved the draft of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Malay-sia with a target of sending 15 lakh (1.5 million) Bangladeshi workers there in three years while the Ma-laysian cabinet approved the MoU on December 20, 2015.
Earlier on 2009, the Malaysian government postponed recruitment of Bangladeshi workers because of several irregularities and corruption in the recruiting process.