Bangladesh workers have opportunities in the European job market in the next few years if it does not go by WTO rules, a recent government study finds.

According to the European Commission-funded study on Temporary Movement of Natural Persons (Mode-4), there will be an opportunity of huge employments in the United Kingdom and Poland, as the first one will be the host of the next Olympic games in 2012 and the latter the next World Cup football.

It said both the UK and Poland are facing a dearth of labour and Poland has already signed an agreement with India to hire 10,000 workers.

The Mode-4 study, which was conducted in December, suggested the Bangladesh government initiate bilateral talks with Poland as it might consider recruiting more workers to meet its growing demand for manpower.

Conducted under the Bangladesh Trade Support Project, the study also pointed out the demand for RMG (ready made garments) and other workers by Rumania and Bulgaria.

It said although the Romanian demand for workers is now met by the Chinese workers, that country is searching for other options as the Chinese labour is nowadays getting expensive and many Romanians are migrating to other countries under the European Economic Areas (EEA) for better payment.

These developments can be availed by Bangladesh, the study suggested.

However, the experts involved in the study are not that optimistic of better prospect for Bangladeshi workers in the job markets of developed and developing countries under the Mode-4 clauses in the WTO (World Trade Organization) rules.

They said the 100 offers 70 initial and the rest 30 revised incorporated in the Mode-4 clause will not be friendly to the Bangladeshi job seekers' free movement from one country to another.

The revised offers to the WTO were placed by Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, European Commission, Malaysia, Norway, Chile, India, Iceland and Singapore.

"Although these countries offered to ensure a free movement of the skilled and semi-skilled workers, these offers did not have any bindings,” an expert said.

The experts found that the offers tried to encourage high-skilled workers, specially professionals and experts.

"But the least developed countries like Bangladesh themselves are strongly in need of such professionals and movement of such experts on temporary basis would not yield result," the expert added.

The consultants suggested the government continue negotiation under Mode-4 for materialising the 'special priority' provisions for LDCs as contained in various WTO documents and declarations.