The fourth ministerial meeting of the “Colombo Process,” a regional consultative process on the management of overseas employment and contractual labour for countries of origins in Asia, will begin in Dhaka on October 20.

After three successful ministerial consultations held in Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Indonesia, Bangladesh, for the first time, will host the two-day ministerial meeting on labour migration at Sonargaon Hotel, Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Engr Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said after an inter-ministerial meeting yesterday.

Talking to the journalists at his secretariat office, he said during the meeting they would give priority on lessening migration cost and making the entire process hassle-free. “We've already asked BAIRA to send a report on migration cost within two months to figure out cost of sending workers to a particular country.”

Mosharraf said after evaluating the report of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) they would discuss how the migration cost can be reduced and how they can ensure "life with dignity” for the migrated workers.

The Colombo Process platform was initiated with the primary objective of facilitating greater regional dialogue and cooperation on the management of labour migration amongst the major labour exporting countries.

Twenty countries are expected to join the meeting of the "Colombo Process”, which will focus on the progress and challenges in the overall migration process sector.

The participating countries are

Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam (under labour sending states category), Bahrain, Italy, Kuwait, Qatar, Korea, Saudi Arabia and the UAE (under countries of destination category).

Before the formal ministerial meeting, senior officials of the member countries will meet on October 19 as part of final preparation for the ministerial meeting.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to inaugurate the meeting as the chief guest while Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain will inaugurate the meeting of senior officials.

Over 2.5 million Asian workers leave their countries every year under contracts to work abroad.

In response to calls from several Asian labour sending countries, the ministerial consultations for Asian labour sending countries were held in 2003 in Colombo.

Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam at the consultation made recommendations for the effective management of overseas employment programmes and agreed to regular follow-up meetings.

Since then, the member states of the "Colombo Process" had met in Manila in 2004 and Bali in 2005 to review and monitor the implementation of previous recommendations and identify areas of future actions.

Bangladesh took over the rotational chairmanship of this regional consultative process onDecember 14in2009.

A further consultation between Europe and Colombo Process countries is scheduled to take place in early 2011.