DHAKA: Bangladesh on Monday urges the manpower employing countries to consider hand written urgent passport besides Machine Readable Passport (MRP) in issuing visas to its people.
“We requested the foreign envoys in Dhaka to recognize both the machine-readable and hand written passports during the transition period,” said Foreign Minister Dipu Moni in a press briefing after a meeting with the envoys at Foreign Ministry office in the city.
Foreign minister invited the ambassadors and high commissioners of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Malaysia, the Maldives, South Korea and UAE met her at the ministry.
The foreign minister said, they have already begun to release Machine Readable Passport (MRP) to the people as per International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) guideline and it would take more time to complete distribution.
“We also requested them to allow the both hand-written and MRP passports so that our workers and students may not face any visa problem. The envoys also assured us of convincing their respective governments in this regard,” she added.
The aim of the briefing at the foreign office is to resolve the problem that Bangladeshi jobseekers facing in getting visas with old or manual passports, she earlier said.
Of late, some of the countries, including the United Arab Emirates, are reluctant to issue visas to Bangladeshis holding the old passport instead of the MRP, she added.
Meanwhile, the immigration office in Abu Dhabi directed UAE employers to submit MRPs of all Bangladeshi jobseekers. Visas are being issued on the basis of passport copies submitted to the immigration authorities of that country, sources said.
Bangladesh launched issuance of MRPs on April 1 this year.
Rafiqul Islam, Deputy-Director (Admin) of Passport Office, earlier said there are around 1.25 crore passport-holders in the country.
Later on April 18, the Home Ministry announced that manual passports would be valid in emergencies for another three years for the expatriate Bangladeshis.
BDST: 2021, 04 JULY 2010
