South Korean Ambassador to Bangladesh Lee Jang-keun has expressed his commitment to deepen and strengthen the people-to-people partnership between Korea and Bangladesh, making the best use of the Employment Permit System (EPS) programme.

Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmad and Ambassador Lee saw off 123 Bangladeshi workers on Monday who left for South Korea.

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It was the 14th batch of Bangladesh workers to Korea after Korea resumed admitting foreign workers through the Employment Permit System (EPS) in December 2021, according to South Korean Embassy in Dhaka.

The South Korean government suspended accepting foreign workers in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

After the resumption, a total of 1447 Bangladesh EPS workers have been admitted to Korea: 111 workers in December 2021, 130 in January, 208 in February, 218 in March, 657 in April, and 123 in May 2022.

On this send-off occasion, Ambassador Lee engaged with the departing Bangladesh workers and expressed his hope and expectation for the departing workers to fulfill their intended goals and dreams in Korea.

He pointed out that the EPS workers had played an essential role in strengthening the friendly ties between Korea and Bangladesh over several decades.

Among the 123 workers this time, 109 workers are fresher while the rest 14 are re-entry workers. It is expected that three more batches of Bangladesh workers will go to ROK this month.

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More than 23,400 Bangladeshi workers have been sent to Korea under the EPS programme since the conclusion of the EPS MOU between the two countries in 2007.

Through the EPS program, Korea has been admitting medium and low-skilled foreign workers from 16 countries, including Bangladesh.

Due to the unprecedented and prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, however, the Korean government suspended receiving EPS workers for more than two years.

Considering continuous requests from the sending countries as well as from the employers, the Korean government decided to lift the suspension from November 2021 in a limited scope and phased manner with strong COVID-19 protective measures.

According to the Bangladesh Bank, the remittance flow from the Bangladesh workers in Korea has been continuously increasing in recent years from US$ 80.65 million in FY 2016/17 to US$ 209.16 million in FY 2020/21.