Malaysia is going to start importing Bangladeshi farm workers from this week, according to a Kuala Lumpur-based non-governmental organization working for safeguarding the interests of expatriate Bangladeshis.

The Bangladesh Workers Welfare Center (BWWC), assigned for this manpower export, claimed that prospect of local agricultural labour force's being employed in Malaysian plantation sector is bright as Indian and Indonesian farm workers take least interests to work in this sector in the recent time, according to The Daily Star report on Sunday.

"This week we are sending a team of 40 persons to Malaysia, charging an amount of only 60,000 taka (about 860 U.S. dollars) as service fee and by the next week another team of 50 persons would leave Dhaka," BWWC Chairman Golam Ahad was quoted as saying.

"We know that it is tough for the average farmer families to pay a huge sum of money, so we made arrangements that the employers in Malaysia pay for the tickets of the intending migrants," he said.

Then the primary charge to go to Malaysia would be reduced to 25,000-30,000 taka (about 360-430 dollars), he said, adding, "we already had signed agreements with some of the Malaysian companies. "

Ahad said BWWC is not a recruiting agency, but an organization that would act as a catalyst to ensure welfare of Bangladeshi expatriates in Malaysia.

"In every 100 men, we would send a socially disadvantaged person free of cost to Malaysia," he said.

He also expressed hope that in the coming days they would be able to export Bangladeshi labourers in other sectors of Malaysia at a much cheaper cost.

Source: Xinhua