Minister of Economic Development Fayyaz Ismail said that in 2019, they had affixed a quota of 150,000 individuals per country being able to reside in the Maldives at any given time, reports The Edition, an English-language online news outlet in Maldives.
Since Bangladeshi immigrants already exceed this quota, at the present time, workers can only be brought from countries other than Bangladesh, he said.
Also read: More Bangladeshis to return home from Maldives on May 15
The restrictions, however, do not apply to professional-level employees, he added.
Maldives Immigration revealed that 63,000 immigrants out of the 144,607 that entered the country under work visas are currently residing illegally.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs revealed on Monday that the number of undocumented Bangladeshi citizens repatriated till date has now reached 5,049.
Authorities estimated earlier that approximately 20,000 workers will be sent back to their home countries by the end of 2020.