30,000 Bangladeshi expats in UAE still don't have new passports, says diplomat

  ABU DHABI – An estimated 30,000 Bangladeshi residents in the UAE may face travel hassles for holding on to handwritten passports. Bangladesh's Ambassador the UAE, Mohammad Imran, said 30,000 Bangladeshis in the UAE have yet to apply for changing their handwritten passports to machine-readable passports. The deadline for switching to smart passports passed on November 24, 2015. About 90 per cent of the estimated 700,000 Bangladeshis living in the UAE were able to apply for new passports, Imran said. “We urge the remaining people to convert their passports at the earliest to ensure hassle-free travel,” the envoy said. Imran said that Bangladeshis holding handwritten passports can travel to Bangladesh once. “But they cannot go out of the country without an MRP ,” he said. It takes up to six weeks for Bangladeshi diplomatic missions in the UAE to process passport renewals or issue new passports.