Sat, Aug 07, 2004 page3

• CLA unveils plan to welcome Bangladeshi workers

  FAVOR OUR FRIENDS Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen greeted the news by observing that the two nations have some complementary interests and policies

  • By Melody Chen and Cody Yiu / STAFF REPORTERS
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  Arrangements will be complete within a month for workers from Bangladesh to join the nation's labor force.

  After returning from a visit to Bangladesh, Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) Chairperson Chen Chu (陳菊) said yesterday that after having certified a hospital in Bangladesh, the CLA will announce its policies admitting workers from the South Asian country.

  "The people of Bangladesh are very energetic and are of high quality on average. In addition, their language abilities are advantageous" to this nation, Chen said.

  Following the recent introduction of workers from Mongolia, Bangladesh will be the seventh country from which foreign workers have been explicitly approved for work in various job categories. Skilled workers from a much larger number of countries are allowed under different regulations.

  According to CLA statistics, as of the end of June the nation hosted 40,935 workers from Indonesia, 22 from Malaysia, 86,599 from the Philippines, 102,337 from Thailand, 72,112 from Vietnam and 36 from Mongolia; the CLA's total was 302,044 foreign workers.

  The agency said the costs of hiring a worker from Bangladesh will be the same as hiring workers from other countries.

  According to the US CIA's World Factbook, Bangladesh has a population of 141 million; 83 percent of the population are Muslims and 16 percent are Hindus. Its official languages are Bangla and English, as its territory was at one time controlled by Britain.

  Chen arrived in Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital, on August 2 to discuss labor and vocational training issues with officials. Chen also reportedly visited trading groups in Dhaka to research the area for potential investment.

  Chen was the highest-ranking Taiwanese official to visit the nation since Bangladesh gained independence in 1971, her agency said.

  According to a Chinese-language report, earlier this year the CLA revised its foreign labor importation policy and determined that a country's diplomatic behavior toward Taiwan should be one criterion in decisions about foreign workers.

  Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen (陳唐山) said yesterday he knew nothing about the CLA chairperson's trip to Bangladesh, but said that it is possible Dhaka had sought to send workers to Taiwan.

  "We have set up a representative office in Bangladesh and mutual exchanges have been going on. Our businessmen have also established factories there," said the minister.

  "Bangladesh is geographically close to China. It received a lot of pressure from China because of its relationship with Taiwan ? Nevertheless, it is interested in developing its textile industry through learning from Taiwan's exper-ience," Mark Chen said.

  Commenting on policies toward foreign workers, he said that although Thailand is a major labor supplier to Taiwan, it has not been diplomatically friendly toward this country.

  "From the diplomatic perspective, this is not a good thing," he said.

  The Taipei Representative Office in Dhaka began operations on March 1 after a year-long negotiation process between the two countries.

  Bangladesh is the second South Asian country in which Taiwan has opened a representative office; the first is India, where the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in New Delhi opened in 1995.
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