Only 500,000 of the 1.4 Bangladeshis who  registered to work in Malaysia are qualified to work in the country’s plantation sector, based on the Malaysian government’s database.

Malaysian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Norlin Othman said since Malaysia and Bangladesh signed a memorandum of understanding at the end of last year on recruiting workers for the plantation sector, about 1.4 Bangladeshis had registered to work in Malaysia.

“After the screening was done, only 500,000 qualified while the other applicants were rejected because they are too old or too young for the job, or are over-qualified, such as university graduates,” she told Malaysian journalists in Dhaka.

However, she said, only 10,000 applications were received from Malaysian employers to recruit foreign workers for the plantation sector.

According to the records, about 320,000 Bangladeshis are working legally in the various sectors in Malaysia currently.

Since 2010, Bangladeshis working in Malaysia have been remitting home about RM3 billion, the highgest figure compared to the workers from Indonesia (RM2.9 billion), Nepal (RM1.9 billion), India (RM625 million) and the Philippines (RM561 million).

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak is in Bangladesh now for his first official visit to Bangladesh from Nov 17 to 19.

Najib, who is also Finance Minister, is scheduled to have a bilateral meeting with his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina today to further enhance relations between the two countries.

- Bernama