Bangladesh along with its 160 million population is enjoying opportunity of demographic dividend where most of the population is under 15-49 age group. On the other hand, shortage of labor in Saudi Arabia is expected to prevail in the private sector at least for the next one decade or so. The construction, basic auxiliary engineering, manufacturing and in the domestic service sector need to hire foreign labor. Bangladesh can be treated as credible source of cost effective workers in the coming years. Remittance from migrant workers has been playing a determinant role in the economic development of Bangladesh. Remittance is the largest single source of foreign exchange in Bangladesh. In the 2015 remittance in Bangladesh hit its record high to $15.32b. The government of Bangladesh has taken few important measures to streamline the manpower export sector in the country. Enacting laws and regulations: The government of Bangladesh has enacted several laws, regulations and established a wide range of skill development and training institutions both in public and private sector. Some notable initiatives of these are enactment of Overseas Employment and Migration Act 2013, Recruiting Agents Conduct rules 2002, Overseas Employment policy 2006, National skill development policy 2012 and formulation of Overseas Employment policy 2016. Focusing on Training for capacity building: It has enhanced capacity of Department of Technical Education (DTE) as well as Bureau of Manpower Employment & Training (BMET) to provide training through its 47 training centers and 6 institutes of Marin technology, to registering and maintaining computerized database of 2.2 million prospective workers through its 47 district employment offices and taking advantage of digital connectivity of more than 5000 union information centers in the domestic level. BMET also serves as regulatory body for licensing and monitoring of private recruiting agencies. Welfare and financial services: Other than these, the government has constituted an autonomous body "Wage Earners Welfare Board" and a designated specialized bank "Probasi Kallyan Bank (Expatriate Welfare Bank)" to provide welfare services and financial support to migrants. Established effort has been taken to revitalize only "state owned" manpower exporting company Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Service Limited (BOESL) to create an alternative avenue for healthy competitiveness with Private sector for recruitment and to reduce migration cost. Character and Security checking: The government has streamlined the recruiting process by adopting three-tier screening system to verify workers without antecedence of criminal record before providing digital Smart card and mandatory immigration clearance certificate to outbound workers. Bangladesh-a source of skilled and quality workforce In order to harness benefits from its demographic dividend, the government of Bangladesh is developing high quality and skilled human resources by imparting training as per requirement of employers from home and abroad. Apart from above mentioned training institutes, there is a large number of engineering and technology universities, medical university and colleges, Agriculture University and institutes and other universities and colleges and polytechnic and vocational training institutions in both public and private sectors are offering high standard undergraduate and graduate degrees in different fields of engineering, agriculture, computer textiles and medical sciences. Every year around 20,000 students get medical graduation degrees from 93 medical colleges, while around 1,500 dentist graduate from 32 dental colleges. Government and private nursing colleges are offering BSC and diplomas in nursing to around 7,000 persons every year. A number of public and private sector institutions, NGOs and industry have been providing technical and vocational education and training (TVET). Kingdom of Saudi Arabia — the most valued destination Since inception the Middle Eastern countries remain as the principal destinations for workers from Bangladesh. According to BMET data from starting of formal recruitment to KSA only with 217 migrants in 1976 the number of migrants over the period reached to 27,16,480 (cumulated figure) in February 2016. However, the number of net Bangladeshi workers working at present in KSA is around 1.3 million. The government of the Kingdom has taken various efforts for job creation or replacement under Saudization program through implementing it employment strategy with specific objectives of unemployment control in the short terms, reducing unemployment for the new entrants in the medium term and job creation and competitiveness in the long term under it 25 years program started in 2009. The Kingdom needs to create 6 million jobs for the new entrants of its workforce by 2030. Some reports show there will be huge demand for doctors, nurses and medical support staff due to huge investment in the health sector, domestic help sector, in the basic auxiliary engineering, construction, hotel management, retail service and food processing and agricultural sectors. Since the Saudi government is looking forward to sector approach and enhancing productivity and competitiveness in the private sector, Bangladesh needs to meet challenges of skill development and productivity increase of its workforce as well. New vista of bilateral cooperation in Human Resources development and recruitment Recent two important decisions by the Kingdom are noteworthy, firstly, declaration of general amnesty from March 10, to Nov. 3, 2013 to allow Bangladesh nationals to transfer Iqamas, which benefitted 7,99,186 Bangladesh nationals and secondly, the declaration of the Royal Court on Feb. 1, 2014 for lifting ban on recruiting Bangladesh national in all category. After the agreement signed in February 2015, Bangladesh started sending female domestic worker to the Kingdom and has already sent more than 35,000 housemaids since May 2015. Bangladesh deserves thanks for immediate response of extending cooperation as the only country to allow piloting its new MUSANED system of issuing visa when Saudi Arabia faced very critical condition for female domestic workers. Both the countries are now working closely to streamline training, proper selection, protection of rights, safety and improving other related institutional framework at both end to make this sector sustainable. In the latest official meeting held on Dec. 31, 2015 in Riyadh between the Minister for Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment of Bangladesh Nurul Islam, and the Minister for Labour of Saudi Arabia Dr. Mufarrej Bin Saad Al Haqbani very useful discussion was held on the entire gamut of the human resources development and recruitment process for mutual benefits. Both ministers agreed on the need to move expeditiously to explore greater cooperation in this very important sector, with special attention to reduce migration cost and imparting adequate training for Saudi bound both male and female workers. Bangladesh side welcomed setting up training institutes in Bangladesh by Saudi entrepreneurs for delivering training to Saudi bound workers. Saudi side also agreed to consider issuance of work visa to family members against each housemaid recruited in the Kingdom and immediate formation of a joint technical committee to streamline the manpower sector. Both countries also look forward to engage in a process of recruitment of professional categories of workers such as doctors, engineers and nurses. Bangladesh is very optimistic to see immediate effect of implementing the long-waited Royal Declaration of lifting of ban on all categories of workers from Bangladesh which will be very crucial to carry forward mutual interest of human resources cooperation in the days ahead.
