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Bangladesh should work seriously for capacity building to become a beneficiary of 'Mode-4' (temporary movement of natural persons) of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

Speakers in a dialogue expressed the sentiment Thursday for bringing economic welfare to the nation.
The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) organised the dialogue titled 'Migration and Mode-4 in health and education sector: Towards a trade and development approach' at its auditorium in the city.

Chaired by noted economist Rehman Sobhan, the dialogue was participated, among others, by former commerce minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, former governor of Bangladesh Bank Mohammad Farashuddin and former commerce secretary Alamgir Faruk Chowdhury.

Deputy Director and Head of Trade and Regional Integration Department of Economic Affairs Division of Commonwealth Secretariat Roman Grynberg presented a keynote paper in the dialogue.

The former commerce minister said Bangladesh economy will be much benefited if the country's policymakers equip themselves with adequate capacity building and also proper economic guidelines as far as Mode 4 is concerned.

He said professionals like nurses in Bangladesh do not get adequate compensation package and on the other hand, they are unable to get migrated to developed countries due to lack of quality.

Roman said the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) of the Commonwealth Secretariat will consider launching a project on migration by Bangladesh citizens and that depends on availability of funds.

He said despite significant interest from India and South Asia, there is no substantive progress on Mode-4 in the World Trade Organisation.

A study of the EAD of Commonwealth Secretariat said presently significant numbers of teachers and nurses are migrating from developing countries to developed countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada and the UK.

"In the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands and Southern Africa and to a lesser degree in South Asia this is viewed as a drain of human capital," it said.

There are often significant economic benefits from this movement of persons for the developing country in the form of remittances.

However, the migration process has resulted in decreases in the capacity of some developing countries to supply teachers and nurses to their own population, the Commonwealth study said.

It further said given demographic trends in developed countries the net migration of professionals will increase in the coming years.

Remittances are an increasingly important source of financial flows to developing countries and a significant source of foreign exchange for some of the poorest nations.

According to World Bank's 2003 Global Development Finance Report, the officially recorded flows have risen to $ 88 billion a year, well in excess of official development assistance ($ 51 billion) and second only to foreign direct investment.