Bangladesh News

Saudi Arabia yesterday denied media reports that it will stop issuing work visas to Bangladeshis from February 9.

It however indicated at slowing down issuance of employment visas to citizens of some countries without mentioning their names.

“We deny reports that the (Saudi) Labour Ministry will stop issuing work visas to Bangladeshi workers. This is simply not true,” Hatab S Al-Hatab, general manager for Media and Public Relations at the Ministry of Labour, told Saudi Gazette, an English language newspaper in the kingdom.

Following press reports in this regard in Bangladesh, Foreign and Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury called Saudi Ambassador in Dhaka Abdullah Al-Obaid Al Namla yesterday. The envoy said Saudi Arabia has been issuing work visas to Bangladeshis regularly, and there has not been any change yet.

At least 5,600 work visas were issued in the past four days, Namla said. Any one who commits offences will however be tried as per Saudi laws irrespective of their countries of origin. These are routine actions, he told the media after the meeting with the adviser at the foreign ministry.

Thanking the ambassador for dispelling the rumours concerning visas, Iftekhar said Bangladesh greatly values the friendship and cooperation with Saudi Arabia.

Hatab told Saudi Gazette that the kingdom is trying to maintain recruitment process for foreigners to keep the workforce balanced. “In fact, issuance of work visas to particular nationalities will slow down when the workforce from that country reaches a certain quota,” he said.

Quoting Bangladesh embassy statistics, he said approximately 1.5 million Bangladeshis are working in the kingdom. “Perhaps this will be the maximum number of foreigners for any nationality recruited to Saudi Arabia in the future,” Hatab said.

Meanwhile, reports received in Dhaka quoted Haroon-ur Rashid, labour counsellor at Bangladesh embassy in Riyadh, as saying Saudi recruitment of foreign workers jumped by around 35 percent last year. Of them, Bangladeshis made up the largest group getting 24 percent of the work visas issued in the year.

Rashid said there was some anti-Bangladeshi propaganda including distribution of video clips by some quarters.