RIYADH: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah held wide-ranging talks with Bangladesh Prime Minister Hasina Wajed, who arrived here yesterday on a four-day official visit to the Kingdom. The summit-level talks focused on several crucial issues that included the prospects of deploying more Bangladeshi workers, trade, investment and other issues of mutual concern.
“Prime Minister Hasina, who is currently visiting Riyadh heading a 40-member delegation that includes Cabinet ministers and senior officials, had very fruitful discussions with King Abdullah,” said a Bangladesh Embassy spokesman. Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal also attended the talks.
This is Hasina’s first trip abroad after assuming the office of prime minister in early January.
The talks dealt with cooperation in manpower and business sectors, the spokesman said. The two leaders also shared their views on some regional and international issues. They agreed that there is a need to do more to boost ties in different sectors, including trade and commerce. The visit of the prime minister is also aimed at rallying support for the coalition government in Dhaka led by Hasina’s Awami League party.
Earlier yesterday, Prince Saud met with Hasina separately and discussed a range of issues of mutual interest. The deployment of more Bangladeshi manpower figured during a meeting between Deputy Minister of Labor Abdulwahed Al-Homaid and Bangladeshi Labor Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain.
The Kingdom is the largest market for Bangladeshi labor, but the number of workers coming to the Kingdom has drastically dropped lately. This year, there was a further fall in recruitment.
Bangladesh is highly dependent on foreign remittances from around 1.5 million Bangladeshis working in Saudi Arabia. In 2008, around 30 percent of Bangladesh’s total remittances of $9 billion came from Saudi Arabia.
The lackluster response from the Kingdom on the issue of deployment of Bangladeshi workers has raised a lot of concerns among diplomats and leaders of that country.
A labor delegation may follow the visit of the prime minister in the near future, said one Bangladeshi diplomat.
Foreign Minister Dipu Moni, Minister for Labor Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, State Minister Hasan Mahmud and State Minister for Labor Begum Munnujan Sufian are also accompanying the prime minister, along with some of her relatives.
