Prime Minister's Economic Affairs Adviser Mashiur Rahman yesterday said Bangladeshi migrant workers receive lower salaries as they are not skilled enough.

"We can utilise our surplus manpower. But we lack skilled workers. That is why we cannot send skilled workers to Europe as much as we want... We have to play an effective role in sending skilled and educated workers," he said at a regional seminar.

Titled "Labour Migrants from South Asia: Issues and Concerns", the seminar was organised by Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) at its auditorium.

Mashiur said there is a need for institutions to make the migrant workers skilled, which is costly.

Due to the lack of capacity of international organisations like the UN and ILO, they cannot enforce regulations. The standards of ILO for migrants do not work, he stated.

Prof Tasneem Siddiqui, chairperson at the Department of Political Science, Dhaka University, said the challenge is that the number of migrant workers is increasing, but not jobs and salaries.

"In broader terms, remittances are increasing. But if we think about growth that we have experienced earlier, that is not there. Remittances are not increasing the way they should be," she said.

The inaugural session was chaired by BIISS Chairman AFM Gousol Azam Sarker.

In the first working session, Md Shariful Hasan, programme head of Brac Migration Programme; Mallika Joseph, senior fellow at Women in Security Conflict Management and Peace; Mahesh Raj Bhatta, research officer at the Centre for South Asia Studies; Shishir Khanal, member of parliament in Kathmandu, and Col Nalin Herath, acting director general at the Institute of National Security Studies, were the speakers.

In the last working session, Md Khairul Alam, additional secretary of the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment, spoke, among others.