Most of about 30,000 Bangladeshis living in Greece migrated through illegal way, but the Greek government now agreed to give a chance for their registration. Labour, Employment and Expatriates Welfare Minister Engineer Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain yesterday informed journalists about the development after his visit to Greece where he attended a four-day seminar on 'Global Forum on Migration and Development'. The Minister said his counterpart of Greece proposed to him to give a chance for registration of the workers to get legality.

"About 10/15 thousand Bangladeshis would get registration card and continue their professional work without any hazard in this process," he told the newsmen at his secretariat office. Mosharraf said he discussed the matter with Bangladeshi workers and they agreed to take the opportunity. The Minister also informed that he had proposed to the Greek government import of trained manpower in shipping, agriculture, garment, tourism and hospitality sectors of that country. "In reply to my proposal, Greece has agreed to send an expert team to Bangladesh to scrutinize those sectors' training facilities," he said.

Mosharraf said that his government has sent about 4.13 lakh workers to different countries in last ten months and more than one lakh are prepared to go while 3.71 lakh workers went abroad in 2006 during the same time. Moreover, remittance flow has increased despite the global recession. Replying to a query, the Minister said, "We have collected about Tk 10 crore from several agencies to distribute the money to those workers who have to come back." He informed that for "cheating with innocent people" the government has scrapped the licences of seven recruiting agencies and three are in the processing for action.

-New Nation