'Bangladesh may earn 10 times remittance by sending skilled workforce'

Expatriates welfare and overseas employment minister Nurul Islam on Saturday emphasised producing skilled manpower saying about 10.1 million Bangladeshi expatriates are working abroad who send about $15 billion in remittance to the country annually.

If we can send our skilled workforce with proper training we can earn 10 times more remittance than we receive now, he told a seminar in the city.

The minister said some 7.89 lakh people have been sent abroad so far this year while there is a target to send one million people abroad.

He said they should be careful enough to stop siphoning off money abroad and urged to reduce non-performing loans (NPL) or bad debts.

Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) organised the seminar on local managerial capacity building at the DCCI auditorium with DCCI president Abul Kasem Khan in the chair.

Abul Kasem said managerial, technical and professional skills have always been the most important factor for any developing countries for fostering innovation, creating business opportunities, increasing productivity, integrating with global value chain and tapping the future prosperity and creating jobs.

As per occupation distribution, he said, they have only 1.8 per cent managers, 3.8 per cent professionals and 1.9 per cent technical experts.

The DCCI chief said lack of skill is slowing the inward foreign remittance trend and increasing the outward remittance transfer.

The education system of our country needs to be restructured matching skills supply to the needs of industry and service sector, he said adding that if any industry spends money for training of their professionals for developing managerial skill that money should be considered as tax free.

Additional secretary, technical & madrasa education division, ministry of education Ashoke Kumar Biswas and managing director of SME Foundation Md. Shafiqul Islam spoke on the occasion as designated discussants.

They said the countrys industry needs skilled manpower and managers of technical skill, communication skill, negotiation skill and convincing skill.

They said $5 billion is spent yearly on hiring foreign skilled managers.