After about eight years, Kuwait may resume hiring Bangladeshi workers from next February for its job market.

The Bangladeshis are likely to be recruited under an agreement between the governments of Bangladesh and Kuwait, said officials at Bangladesh embassy in Kuwait yesterday.

“Kuwait government has agreed to consider the recruitment. A meeting is likely to be held soon among officials of the two countries,” an embassy official told The Daily Star over the phone, wishing not to be named.

The Middle Eastern country imposed a ban on recruiting Bangladeshi workers in 2006, citing malpractices in the recruitment process by Bangladeshi private agencies.

Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, who visited Kuwait last month, requested the Kuwaiti government to open its job market for Bangladeshis.

Abdul Latif Khan, counsellor (labour wing) at the Bangladesh embassy, last evening said Kuwait would hire Bangladeshis for all its sectors, including construction and manufacture. 

Replying to a query about the signing of a memorandum of understanding on the recruitment between the two countries, Latif said he was unaware of the matter.

Leaders of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) though are not hopeful about the reopening of the Kuwaiti job market for the Bangladeshis soon. 

Around 190,000 Bangladeshis are now in Kuwait, reports English daily Kuwait Times, quoting officials at the Bangladesh embassy.