ABU DHABI, Jan 22: Gulf Arab states heavily dependent on an Asian labour force agreed on Tuesday with labour-sending Asian countries to join forces against the exploitation of expat workers from Asia.

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) labour ministers and counterparts from Asia are to propose an action plan to protect the welfare of Asian workers, according to their Abu Dhabi Declaration.

The ministers have recommended the drawing up within three months of the plan aimed at “preventing illegal recruitment practices” both at the country of origin and in host countries.

The declaration also called for “promoting welfare and protection measures for contractual workers ... and preventing their exploitation at origin and destination.”

Emirati Labour Minister Ali al-Kaabi said at the start of the ministerial meeting on Tuesday that “guest workers must be afforded the security that they will receive the benefits that they are entitled to”.

The meeting in the Emirati capital builds on the Asian Regional Consultative Process on Overseas Employment and Contractual Labour, known as the Colombo Process.

Set up in 2003, the Colombo Process groups Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam to initiate dialogue on overseas labour.

“We have agreed that Asian workers are contracted workers, not what some call immigrant workers,” Kaabi told reporters at the end of the ministerial meeting, stressing that those workers stay in the GCC for a limited period.

The booming economies of the GCC countries, which are reaping the benefits of record oil prices, remain however in dire need of cheap skilled and unskilled labour from the Asian sub-continent.

“When it comes to salaries, there are other countries looking for the same categories of skills... If well trained, they (workers) would not come to the GCC because of salaries,” said Kingsley Ranwaka of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment.

Studies have suggested the gap between wages in the GCC and some robust Asian economies is closing fast, dampening the appeal of the Gulf market for skilled workers.—AFP