Formulate policy to cut reliance on foreign experts, workers

Economists yesterday suggested the government formulate policies on creating skilled workforce for different sectors to reduce the huge amount of money being drained out of the country owing to hiring of foreigners.

Every year over $4 billion is remitted out of the country as salaries and allowances of foreign skilled workforce, said Rushidan Islam Rahman, executive chairperson of the Centre for Development and Employment Research (CDER).

"We are paying remittance for skilled foreign workers and Bangladesh is sending unskilled workers abroad. We need to formulate a policy to stop paying such a big amount of remittance by creating skilled workforce locally," she said.

Rahman was speaking after presenting a paper on "Is Bangladesh over-dependent on overseas employment" at a discussion on the "Bangladesh Employment and Labour Market Watch 2019: Sector challenges and opportunities" at the Policy Research Institute (PRI) in Dhaka.

Economists, government high-ups, researchers and university professors attended the discussion.

Mainly chief executive officers and managers employed in local and multinational companies were taking away $5-6 billion every year as remittance, said M Syeduzzaman, a former finance minister.

The government allows foreign workers here to take away 75 percent of their salary as remittance, he said.

"We have to have some programmes to produce skilled workforce in order to reduce such big amounts of money being remitted out every year," Syeduzzaman said.

In Bangladesh, entrepreneurs are not being encouraged to go for manufacturing, said Farooq Ahmed, secretary general of the Bangladesh Employers Federation.

So, the entrepreneurs feel encouraged to go for trade-based businesses, he said.

"We need several labour-intensive sectors to generate more jobs. Incentives are paid discriminately and a few select sectors enjoy the government benefit," said Rizwanul Islam, senior visiting fellow of the CDER and a distinguished fellow at the PRI.

Prof Shamsul Alam, senior secretary of the General Economics Division at the Planning Commission, urged district level technical training centres to play a vital role in producing skilled workforce.

Planning Minister MA Mannan said a 7-per cent economic growth over a period of eight to 10 years was impressive. "We will really be an economically developed country by 2040," he said.