Local recruiting agencies catering to Bangladeshis seeking Qatari jobs will be only dealing with the sending process, including ticket purchase and medical tests, for "a certain amount" as service charge.

Meanwhile, the expatriates' welfare and overseas employment ministry will select the appropriate candidates after going through demands employers will be placing at the Bangladesh embassy. "The employers will bear all costs -- for visa procedure, air tickets and others. So, the jobseekers need not go to brokers or middlemen," Khandker Mosharraf Hossain told journalists at a press briefing in the capital's Probashi Kalyan Bhaban yesterday.

The move was to cut irrational costs the agencies charge from jobseekers and end their "visa trade" in Qatar, he added.

Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies President Mohammed Abul Bashar said they would sit for talks over the issue with the secretary.

The minister's remark comes against the backdrop of a visit to the Middle Eastern country by a delegation led by Mosharraf at February's end.

By this year, one to 1.5 lakh Bangladeshis will find Qatari jobs, he claimed, adding that in the last two months the Qatar government allotted 50,000 work visas for Bangladesh.

The Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) says 15,000 Bangladeshis took up jobs in Qatar in the last two months.

Meanwhile, BMET Director General Begum Shamsun Nahar announced that females in Dhaka division seeking jobs abroad, particularly in Saudi Arabia, have to register

their names online from Thursday to March 11.

The registration will be running at union and ward digital centres and district manpower offices from 9:00am to 5:00pm every working day. The jobseekers have to pay Tk 300 (Tk 200 as government registration fee and Th 100 as service charge).

Registration of those in Rajshahi and Rangpur divisions will be from March 12 to 16, Chittagong and Sylhet from March 17 to 23, and Khulna and Barisal from March 24 to 28.