New Zealand to help Lanka establish immigration resource centre in East

By NETHMI RAJAWASAM

ECONOMYNEXT –The Labour and Foreign Employment ministry is to establish a migrant worker resource centre in the Eastern Province, with the use of a New Zealand government grant of 350,000 New Zealand dollars.

“It is planned to establish an immigration resource center in the Eastern Province to provide adequate, timely and reliable information and guidance to reduce the risks and challenges faced by migrants, returning migrants and prospective migrants while traveling and living in foreign countries,” a government information department statement on cabinet decisions said.

The centre is to be established with the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the International Center for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) and Sri Lanka’s ministry of labor and foreign employment.

An estimated 1.7 million Sri Lankans are employed abroad.

ICMPD is an Austrian think tank that makes policy recommendations on migration-related issues to governments and intergovernmental agencies.

The Government of New Zealand has agreed to provide a grant of 350,000 New Zealand dollars through its Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to implement the project.

Sri Lanka is in the midst of experiencing the aftermath of an exodus of professionals migrating out of the country in the past year. Official data reveals that in 2022, 14,307 professionals left Sri Lanka, a significant increase from the 8,373 that left in 2021 and 2,957 in 2020.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe has said that the pandemic, food, energy, climate and fertiliser crises faced by Sri Lanka were causes for the exacerbation of the global debt crisis, locally.