Over 600,000 Bangladeshi expats living in Oman

Muscat: Oman is an important labour market to Bangladeshi expats and this country will also continue to remain vibrant this year as the Gulf country has started implementing a number of development projects said the Deputy Head of Oman Embassy Maushumi Rahman to the Business Standard 

Speaking to the Dhaka-based Business Standards newspaper, Maushumi Rahman said “Oman recalls the role of expatriate Bangladeshis in the development process of the Gulf country over the years.”

More then 600,000 Bangladeshi expatriates are living currently in Oman and employed in different sectors. As the gulf country has started getting back on track, she said the labour market of Oman to Bangladeshis seems lucrative in 2022.”

According to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment of Training (BMET), Bangladeshi exported a total of around 1.6 million workers to Oman during the period of 1976-2021, sharing 11.6 precent of he country’s total manpower export to overseas markets during the same period. 

The diplomat said, “We believe the Sultanate will remain as a major destination of Bangladeshi expatriate workers in 2022. Our expatriate workers, through their sincerity, modesty and hard work, have created a good impression on the Omani employers and their aptitude to pick up Arabic quickly an ability to muster the skills required for all kinds of jobs made them particularly popular amongst the Omanis.”

She said that the constant campaigns of the embassy have encouraged many Omani employers in remote places of the Sultanate to recruit workers from Bangladesh.

“In spite of Covid-19, recruitment of Bangladeshi workers in Oman was good last year. We brought around 60,000 workers in the last one year (2021), and the present trend shows that total recruitment of Bangladeshi workers in 2022 may surpass three times of the previous recruitment in 2021,” she added. 

Meanwhile, aa later of the now defunct Bangladeshi Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) while talking to the daily said Bangladesh is expecting to export over 160,000 workers to Oman.