DUSHANBE, March 14, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- Tajikistan stands in second place globally in terms of the number of labor migrants working in the Russian Federation following Uzbekistan, resident representative of Russia’s Federal Migration Service (FMS) in Tajikistan, Viktor Sadchenko, announced at the second session of inter-parliament commission for cooperation between the Majlisi Milli (Tajikistan’s upper chamber of parliament) and the Federation Council of Russia (Upper house of Russia’s parliament) in Dushanbe on February 13.

“According to official data FMS received, some 318,000 labor migrants from Tajikistan worked in Russia last year,” Sadchenko said, noting that the main problem of Tajik labor migrants working in Russia was poor knowledge of the Russian language.

Commenting on labor migration issues, the Russian co-chairman of the inter-parliament commission, Oleg Panteleyev, noted that time had come for working out “modular law on labor migration that could promote unification of labor migration laws of the two countries in the future.”  “We propose to consider the possibility of labor migration from Russia to Tajikistan.  We know your country needs skilled hydropower engineering workers, geologists and engineers.  Russia has such specialists and they could work in Tajikistan,” Panteleyev said.