No visa ban for Bangladesh nationals in UAE

An official of the United Arab Emirates foreign ministry has dismissed news reports of a visa ban on Bangladeshis in the gulf state.

The reports have claimed that the UAE has not been issuing visas for Bangladeshis since 2012, when Bangladesh voted for Moscow rather than Dubai as the host city for the World Expo 2020.

Dubai eventually won the bid.

Assistant Undersecretary for Consular Affairs of the UAE foreign ministry Ahmed Alham Al Dhaheri said the UAE had been issuing an increasingly large number of visas for Bangladeshis every year.

Last year 250,000 Bangladeshis went to the UAE.

“Only labour-related visas depend on companies,” he pointed out.

He also said the gulf state was restructuring the rules for some companies on how many workers they would be allowed to hire.

Al Dhaheri was talking to journalists after the opening of a new, separate UAE consular section in Dhaka, the fourth of its kind in the world.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam inaugurated the centre in the Gulshan diplomatic area.

With this new centre, according to Dhaheri, an electronic visa system would be introduced and Bangladeshi travellers would be able to use e-gates at all airports in the UAE.

The UAE officials will take biometric details and eye scans of intending visitors at the time of issuing visas.

Ambassador Saeed bin Hajar al Shehi said the inauguration of the new consular office had reinforced the “good brotherly relations” between Bangladesh and the UAE.

Minister of State Alam thanked the UAE for opening a separate consular centre and hoped this would ease the visa process for Bangladeshis.

“This will ensure a transparent and faster process for issuing visas,” he said. “We hope a large number of Bangladeshis will be able to get visas now.”

He said the UAE would also appoint labour attachés at its diplomatic mission in Bangladesh to ease the process of  recruitment of workers from the country.

The minister also hoped that the UAE would take in more Bangladeshis ahead of the 2020 expo.

The UAE is one of the largest manpower destinations for Bangladesh.