News Details

Incentives for manpower export


---



Mohammad Rafiqul Islam
The population of Bangladesh can be converted into human capital for the country if we can ensure the optimum usage of the population both at home and abroad. The country has been struggling hard to overcome various problems like poverty, illiteracy, political unrest, red tapism, and corruption since independence which creates bottleneck to faster growth. To address those hindrances properly, we need effective policy support from the top most level so as to, primarily, identify the loopholes and, secondly, hammer out solution thereto. But we have a lot of positives we should be proud of, such as hard working human resource, resilience to fight natural disasters, skilled and organised peace keeping troops, who are widely appreciated for their overwhelming contribution to the world peace and so much more. Our boys are proving their power of knowledge at competitions at various levels around the world. But due to the lack of effective policy formulation, we have not so far got any result as we expected and dreamt of. For making the economy of the country to move at a faster pace, we have to set targets for achieving long term, medium term and short term goals.

Earning of foreign currency is the most time demanding issue in the current world scenario. The developed world has got its methods of mobilising huge amount of foreign currency into their country by way of export and through employment in other countries.

For our self development, we should concentrate hugely on the earning of foreign currency through export augmentation in the sector of goods, services and human resources. Foreign currency earning through export of goods and commodity is costlier than those of human capital. Those who are eager to go abroad for employment are of the age group of 20 to 35 years of age, and they account for almost 45 per cent of the population. The government can easily and cheaply utilise the huge number of this young manpower by facilitating them in seeking employment overseas. The foreign missions of the respective countries can assist the government to find the job market suitable to our human resources.

The governments around the globe have been offering incentives to the exporters to promote export in the greater interest of huge inward remittance. Bangladesh government is no exception to this. As per statistics recently published, Bangladesh fetches US$18.00 billion in export earnings in the financial year 2011-2012, on the other hand US$ 12.00 billion has been earned through inwards remittance by wage earners. We can increase the earning of foreign currency manifold if we give greater emphasis on manpower export.

Exporting manpower is a very cumbersome and complex job in Bangladesh. We have experienced the hassles in exporting manpower for a long time. It is here that the government can intervene not just to make the overseas jobseekers' task easier. More importantly, there should be a befitting mechanism to promote their ventures with facilities and if possible, with financial incentives like soft term credits. The banks may, on verification regarding a confirmed job contract overseas, allow soft term loans to interested clients. In most cases, the jobseekers are ruined by the agents who arrange for their employment contracts and trips abroad. In the present day world, credit facilities from banks and other financial institutions serve to benefit almost all sections of people. For generating a boost in our manpower export, the idea may be examined by the appropriate authorities.


[ VIEWS & Analysis ] 2012-08-11