RIYADH, 4 September 2005 — Nepal’s new ambassador to the Kingdom has said that his top priority is to lobby for a Saudi mission in Katmandu to serve Nepalese workers who are coming to the Kingdom in large numbers.
“We spend some SR50 million annually for processing Saudi visas in Dhaka where it is handled by the Saudi mission currently accredited to Nepal,” said Abullaish Thakurai, the country’s new ambassador who presented copies of his credentials to Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal in Jeddah yesterday.
The ambassador said he took up the matter with Prince Saud to emphasize that even a consulate in Katmandu would help minimize the costs and time spent on processing visas in the Bangladeshi capital.
There are 300,000 Nepalese workers in the Kingdom, and around 25,000 more have approval from the labor department for deployment in the Kingdom.
Prior to his posting here, Thakurai was the executive director of the Center for Economic Development and Research Institute in Katmandu. The Nepalese Embassy has been without an ambassador for more than two years since the departure of Ambassador Badri Prasad Kanal who left on completion of his tenure in the Kingdom.
The new envoy said he was determined to revamp the mission’s setup to establish new areas of cooperation with the Kingdom.
Thakurai said Saudi Arabia is home to 70 percent of the Nepalese workers in the Gulf region, yet they do not have direct flights to their homeland. He added that he would negotiate with the Saudi Arabian Airlines to operate flights to Katmandu.
Thakurai said the recruitment of Nepalese workers is handled by the Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies which recenty reported a remarkable increase in the manpower export to the Kingdom in recent months. “The increasing demand has been attributed to the exemplary performance of the Nepalese together with their honesty and industrious qualities,” he added.
He said he intends to diversify the recruitment of Nepalese workers to skilled and semi-skilled workers. At present, 90 percent of the Nepalese in the Kingdom are construction and farm workers. He said the country would be happy to send women workers for organized sectors such as hospitals and rehabilitation centers.
