Bangladesh plans to export manpower to six new countries as the traditional job market has become saturated, especially after the COVID-19 outbreak.
The countries are Cambodia, Poland, China, Rumania, Croatia and Seychelles.
The Ministry of Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment on Tuesday informed the parliamentary standing committee on expatriates welfare and overseas employment about the new initiative at a meeting in the Parliament building.
At the meeting, the parliamentary body asked the ministry to increase diplomatic efforts to stop possible reduction of job markets abroad, said a Parliament secretariat press release.
The committee also asked the ministry to take steps to send back workers to their former workplaces abroad from where they had returned after coronavirus situation.
The ministry told the committee that it distributed medicine and food among migrant workers during the coronavirus outbreak, the release said.
The ministry is also implementing a project through Wage Earners’ Welfare Board funded by World Bank to reintegrate the returnees, the release said.
The meeting was presided over by the committee chairman Anisul Islam Mahmud while expatriates welfare and overseas employment minister Imran Ahmad, committee members M Ali Ashraf, Mouazzam Hossain Ratan, Ayesha Ferdaus and Pankaj Nath were present, among others.