Bangladesh sent more than 250 workers to Iraq as part of a drive to open a new jobs market for the nation's poor and help to ease the domestic fallout from the global downturn, a minister said Saturday. The 252 men will be employed working on infrastructure projects in the war-torn country, and Bangladesh's labour and manpower minister Khandaker said the government hopes another 100,000 labourers will soon follow.
"There is a huge demand for workers in Iraq and we hope to send as many as they need," Mosharraf Hossain told AFP, adding that the group left on Thursday along with Dhaka's new ambassador to Baghdad. Hossain said his government was aware of the risk its nationals would face in Iraq, but said it wanted to help with Iraq's post-conflict reconstruction and provide a new job market for its young men.
Bangladesh's new ambassador to Iraq, Kamal Uddin, and its labour councillor will assess risk factors and job prospects in the oil-rich nation, Hossain said. The opening up of Iraq as a new labour market comes as a huge relief for impoverished Bangladesh - hard hit by a fall off in labour demand across the Middle East and South East Asia due to the global recession.