338 agencies can send workers to Malaysia: ministry

A total of 338 Bangladeshi recruiting agencies will get the opportunity to send workers from Bangladesh to Malaysia, the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment said in a press release yesterday.

Of them, the Malaysian government has directly selected 25 agencies, while 312 have been allowed to work as associate recruitment agencies. The state-run Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services Limited will also take part in the process.

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However, the specific procedure for sending workers to Malaysia is still being finalised, and the ministry urged prospective workers not to make any payments, undergo medical tests or submit passports until it issues formal instructions.

In the press release, the ministry said Malaysia had selected 25 recruiting agencies for Bangladesh under a cabinet decision. According to the statement, Malaysia also approved 25 agencies for Nepal and 10 each for India, Pakistan and Myanmar.

The 25 Bangladeshi agencies were selected from a list of 423 recruiting agencies prepared by the interim government, the ministry said.

It added that Bangladesh had urged Malaysia to exclude from the list agencies that had benefited during the Awami League government or had been involved in recruitment syndicates, while allowing the remaining agencies to participate in the process.

The current arrangement stems from a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between Bangladesh and Malaysia on December 18, 2022, which remains in effect until December 31 this year, the ministry said.

It also said Malaysia had agreed in principle, following a special request from Bangladesh, to recruit 10,000 Bangladeshi workers without charging them migration costs.

Their first batch will be sent to Malaysia through Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services Limited on a special chartered flight, marking the resumption of worker deployment to the Malaysian labour market.

However, the ministry did not specify when the first batch would leave Bangladesh.

The ministry said representatives of Malaysia’s health, human resources and home ministries would have to visit Bangladesh and inspect each medical centre before granting final approval.

For the time being, recruitment-related activities will begin through 16 existing Malaysian-approved medical centres.

The ministry said the reopening of the labour market followed several ministerial-level meetings between the two countries.

It also said Prime Minister Tarique Rahman discussed the issue with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar during his first foreign visit.

On August 22, Malaysia’s Foreign Workers Centralised Management System listed 25 Bangladeshi recruiting agencies for worker recruitment, but did not spell out whether recruitment would be confined to those agencies, how job orders would be distributed, or when workers would begin travelling.

The uncertainty revived concerns over the previous recruitment mechanism, under which only a limited number of Bangladeshi agencies were allowed to send workers to Malaysia.