Saudi Arabia lifts ban on Bangladeshi workers

After consistent food crisis and lack of financial resources, the Indian workers approached the embassy for assistance in returning back to India.

“We appreciate the magnanimous view taken by the Saudi Arabian government of granting exit visas expeditiously and agreeing to bear the expenses for the travel of the workers”, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in his weekly media briefing here.

The ban did not apply to female domestic workers who make up for 60,000 of the 1.3 million Bangladeshis working in the kingdom.

Following reports of retrenchment of the workers by the Saudi Oger company, Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh visited Saudi Arabia last week.

The opening of the recruitment channels from Bangladesh is resulted from the meeting between Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in June, said the diplomat.

After India requested exit visas with No-Objection Certificates for all the stranded Indian workers, the Saudi Government had agreed to provide the same and has also permitted workers to attain re-employment. “We are confident that this will alleviate the problems faced by workers of all nationalities”, said the MEA Spokesperson.

Both ministers made agreement to enhance cooperation in the manpower sector by addressing issues to reduce migration cost, imparting training to Saudi-bound workers, and recruiting more male workers for mutual benefits.

The decision came as thousands of workers, a lot of them from the Philippines and India, are stranded in Saudi Arabia after big lay-offs triggered by a slump in oil prices.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj yesterday informed Rajya Sabha that 55,730 Indians have returned from Saudi Arabia since August 2015 and the government was closely monitoring the situation in Gulf countries. As per the figures, the number of returnees in May this year was 7,752 while it was over 8,000 in June and 6,437 in July.