KATHMANDU: Although Nepal is a major source for supplying manpower to many countries, it has signed the bilateral labour agreement with only one.

The government has so far opened 110 countries for sending Nepali worker for employment but has signed the bilateral labour agreement only with Qatar.

However, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this effect has already been signed with Japan, South Korea, Bahrain, Kuwait and Israel.

The bilateral labour agreement is meant for ensuring workers' human rights and claiming compensation in case of violation of such rights.

Chief of Foreign Employment Promotion Board Raghuraj Kafle insisted that the country should sign the bilateral labour agreement with the destination county before sending worker to labour market there, and if that is not possible, it should at least sign the MoU.

According to available data, over 4 million Nepali workers have gone for abroad jobs to various countries except India through an official channel in the past two decades. The Department started keeping the records of aspirants of foreign employment from 1995 (2052) BS.