Minister of Economic Development Ahmed Fayyaz Ismail and Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment Ahmed Mahloof conferred on Tuesday at the Galolhu National Stadium, to discuss the possible utilisation of the premises for registering labour workers.
The move to update expatriate records follows the Economic Minister’s recent announcement of a new quota for foreign labourers mid-September.
According to a statement made by Sports Minister Mahloof, Tuesday's meeting was held in hopes of alleviating the growing queues of workers standing outside the dedicated Ministry office. He expressed a wish to solve the issue at the earliest.
Noting that solutions for the increasing number of undocumented immigrants residing illegally in the country was required, Minister of Economics Ahmed Fayyaz confirmed on September 18 that, in addition to the ban on Bangladeshi labourers for a period of one year, a quota of 150,000 individuals would be fixed for immigrants from each country.
The restrictions, however, do not apply to professional workers.
Decisions to limit incoming labour force was first made by the task force established by President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, which is also headed by Fayyaz. However, Minister Fayyaz confirmed that the regulation would be reviewed if the decision was found to negatively impact the economy over the next six months.
Maldives Immigration revealed that as many as 63,000 immigrants out of the 144,607 that entered the country under work visas are currently residing illegally.
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