Malaysia on Tuesday resumed recruitment of manpower from Bangladesh after a long pause of four years as the first batch of Bangladeshi workers reached Kuala Lumpur.

A flight of Air Asia carrying 53 Bangladeshi workers landed at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 5:22am, said the High Commission of Bangladesh in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.

Bangladesh High Commissioner Md Golam Sarwar welcomed them at the airport and expressed satisfaction over the resumption of workers recruitment.

Bangladesh expects that around five lakh workers will get employment opportunities in Malaysia within the next three years.

The High Commission of Bangladesh said the remittance inflows from Malaysia will exceed USD 3 billion with the recruitment of new five lakh workers.

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The workers were employed in a Malaysian food processing industry Jimat Jaya.

According to the new salary scale of the Malaysian government, they will get a salary of at least Tk 37,000 per month.

Besides, they will be provided with overtime, free accommodation, health insurance, work accident insurance and other benefits as applicable under Malaysian law.

High Commissioner Golam Sarwar expressed his gratitude to all the Bangladeshi and Malaysian colleagues for the resumption of recruitment of Bangladeshi workers.

Minister of Labor Wing of High Commission Najmus Sadat Salim along with officials of Human Resources Observatory of Malaysia and journalists from both countries were present at the airport.

In 2018, the then Malaysian government shut the door of his country’s labour market to workers from Bangladesh for alleged irregularities by hiring agencies in both countries.

At the centre of the latest dispute is that the Malaysian government wants the recruitment to be done by a selected group of 25 Bangladeshi agencies. Dhaka rejects the idea as it will leave out many mostly smaller agencies (over 1,500) out of the process and business.