The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has not stopped issuing visas for Bangladeshis, state minister for foreign affairs has said dismissing media reports.
Shahriar Alam on Sunday said the UAE ambassador in Dhaka told him that they had issued 1,716 visas only for workers in Jan and a similar number would be issued in this month.
He said this in the backdrop of recent media reports that suggested that Dubai, one of the largest manpower destinations for Bangladesh, had stopped issuing visas to Bangladeshis.
The reports, quoting sources, said that the Dubai move followed Bangladesh’s vote for Russia for hosting the World Expo 2020.
But Dubai finally won the bid.
The junior minister said Bangladesh had voted for Dubai in the second and third rounds of the voting.
“They (UAE government) also know it”, he said, and added he had met the ambassador in Dhaka at least twice in the past two weeks.
The minister said a UAE team would soon come to Bangladesh with its investment plan.
The Gulf nation hosts more than one million Bangladeshi workers, the second highest after Saudi Arabia. It has been an uninterrupted labour market for foreign remittance-dependent Bangladesh, despite the recent global economic recession.
A five-member UAE delegation, led by the Minister for Foreign Trade Sheikha Lubna Bint Khaled Al Qasimi last year in Jan visited Dhaka with their investment plans in different sectors including energy and power, infrastructure, agriculture and IT.
Source: bdnews24
