Thailand praises ‘high quality’ Bangladeshi migrant workers, mulls hiring more

Thailand will consider recruiting more Bangladeshi workers in different sectors, chairman of its national council on labour reform says.

He says Bangkok values Bangladesh as the provider of “a major high quality skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workforce”.

Lieutenant General Decha Punyaban made the remarks in a meeting with Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Nurul Islam BSc in Bangkok on Friday.

Bangladesh embassy in Bangkok said the minister briefed the Thai official about the government’s “safe migration with dignity” policy on overseas labour employment.

Islam is on a two-day visit to the southeast Asian nation to discuss potential recruitment of Bangladeshi labour, particularly in the deep sea, construction, manufacturing and service sectors.

The Bangkok embassy said the minister told the chairman nine million Bangladeshi migrant workers were employed in 160 countries and they were known as a “hard-working and law-abiding workforce”.

He told the Thai side that the government maintained a database of two million aspiring migrant workers along with 71 technical training centres (TTC).

It meant, he said, Bangladesh had the “readiness and capacity” to deploy a large number of trained workers in various sectors in Thailand, including fishing, construction, agriculture, industry, manufacturing, IT, and hospitality.

The minister asked for an early conclusion of the MoU on ‘Cooperation in Employment of Sea Fishery and Construction Workers’ between Bangladesh and Thailand.

The chairman praised the “positive reputation” enjoyed by Bangladeshi workers abroad, and assured the minister of all possible support in concluding the MoU.

He highlighted the possibility of initiating technical cooperation between the vocational training institutes of the two countries.

Bangladesh ambassador to Thailand Saida Muna Tasneem was present, among others, at the meeting.