Recruit skilled workers without special training, Bangladesh asks Japan

Bangladesh has asked Japan to recruit its “skilled” construction workers without Tokyo’s special training requirement.

Japan, which usually does not draw Bangladeshi workers, needs a large number of foreign workforce as it is preparing for the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics.

Workers are also needed for the reconstruction works in the Great East tsunami devastated area.

But Tokyo recruits foreign workers under its Technical Intern Training Programme (TITP) that teaches Japanese industrial and vocational skills.

It takes time to complete the programme.

State minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam requested Japan’s Vice Foreign Minister Kazuyuki Nakane to hire Bangladesh’s “skilled” workers without forcing TITP on them.

They met in Male on Monday, on the sidelines of the Maldives’ golden jubilee celebrations of Independence.

Japan earlier invited Bangladesh construction workers to take part in the “Foreign Construction Worker Acceptance Program” under the TITP.

Japan is a long-standing development partner of Bangladesh. The relations reached “a new height” last year when both prime ministers made state visits.

The vice minister said Japan remained “firmly involved” in implementing the "the Bay of Bengal Industrial Growth Belt" or BIG-B initiatives undertaken between the countries during those visits.

Under the initiative, Japan had promised 600 billion Yen in development assistance to Bangladesh for infrastructure development.

Alam thanked Tokyo for its recent decision to further relax the rules of origin for export of Bangladeshi knitwear products to Japan.

He offered high quality and competitive prices in jute products, handicrafts, garments, ceramics, leather products, pharmaceuticals and IT products for Japanese importers.

He suggested that Japan might consider Bangladesh as an attractive place for outsourcing IT-enabled services.

He also sought Japanese investments in the IT sector.