The State of Qatar has inaugurated two visa centers in Bangladesh, one in Dhaka and the other in Sylhet, as part of the state’s efforts to facilitate and streamline procedures for bringing expatriates to work.
The inaugurating of Qatar Visa Centers in Bangladesh is part of the opening of 20 centers in eight countries (the first was opened in Sri Lanka last October) to speed up and streamline the procedures of expatriate workers and follow them up by concerned authorities in Qatar.
Director-General of Passports Major General Mohammed Ahmed Al Ateeq said that the launch was part of the plan to establish visa center overseas project, which is being implemented in eight different countries and aims to facilitate all procedures for obtaining residence in Qatar, in terms of medical examination, forensic evidence and fingerprints, to make it easier for an expatriate to work in Qatar and start work upon arrival.
Director of Recruitment Support Services Department at Passports Directorate Major Abdullah Khalifa Al Mohannadi said the opening of two new centers in Bangladesh comes as part of the completion of the project stages and efforts of Qatar to protect the rights of expatriates and facilitate their work procedures.
This will be followed by the opening of the rest of the centers successively in other countries during the coming period, he added. He explained that these centers will provide the conducting of medical examinations and the signing of employment contracts for expatriates in their countries before coming to Qatar. He further added that the move reflects Qatar’s keenness to ensure the protection and safety of expatriates under simplified and efficient recruitment procedures.
He pointed out that these centers provide services including fingerprinting for the expatriate worker, registration of vital data, conducting medical examinations, and signing of a contract of employment, in order to ensure the facilitation of these procedures and the preservation and protection of the rights of the expatriate and the employer before traveling to Qatar as well as avoiding the return of the ineligible cases, and speed up the work immediately upon arrival in Qatar, all through the provision of integrated, effective and high quality electronic services.
On the procedures, he explained that Qatar Visa Centers will enable both the employer and the expatriate worker to perform their role accurately through an integrated recruitment system after employer’s registration on the Ministry of Interior website and issuing the reference number for the expatriate to complete his procedures through the visa center. The Qatar Visa Centers are established in cooperation between by the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labor and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Qatar also seeks to expand the services provided by these centers in the following stages.
Ambassador of the State of Qatar to Bangladesh Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Dehaimi, Major General Abdullah Salim Al Ali, Director of the unified services department at the General Directorate of Passports Brigadier Abdullah Ahmad Al Ansari, and Director of Recruitment Support Services Department at Passports Directorate Major Abdullah Khalifa Al Mohannadi attended the inauguration of the two centers. From the Bangladeshi part, Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Nurul Islam, a number of senior government officials and heads of diplomatic missions attended the inauguration of the two centers.
