Foreign minister urges South Korea to recruit more workers from Bangladesh

Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali has asked South Korea to employ more Bangladeshi workers.

He made the call in response to the praise heaped by visiting Korean MPs on Bangladeshi migrant workers for their “hard work”.

Chairman of the Korea-Bangladesh Parliamentary Friendship Group Cho Won-jin, and another MP, Lim Neh-hyun, who are on a three-day visit, called on the minister at his office on Tuesday.

The foreign ministry said they praised the discipline and hard work of Bangladeshi workers.

They said a number of Korean companies were also hiring Bangladeshi workers in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.

The minister thanked the South Korean government for the move.

Currently, 11,000 Bangladeshis are working in the highly regulated South Korea, where they are treated equally with Korean workers.

He welcomed Korean investments, especially in energy and power, infrastructure, ICT, and shipbuilding.

Mahmood Ali said Bangladesh was keen to learn from the Korean success story and follow the lessons to realise its goals of becoming a middle-income country by 2021 and a developed nation by 2041.

The South Korean delegation promised support and cooperation to Bangladesh in attaining those targets.

They lauded the socio-economic progress made by Bangladesh under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and praised the country’s consistent advancement and its MDG achievements.

The delegation also praised Bangladesh’s diplomatic successes in becoming Chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA).

The foreign minister thanked Korea for its support in those elections.