Libya will recruit thousands of workers from Bangladesh under an agreement the two countries signed in Dhaka on Friday, officials said.

The north African country will employ the Bangladeshis for a $130 billion infrastructure development plan that Tripoli has launched, Manpower Ministry officials in Dhaka said.

'We will employ 1 million foreigners in five years for the construction of 300,000 housing units, 27 university complexes, 10,000 km of roads and maintenance of 24,000 km highways,' visiting Libyan labour minister Maatoog Mohammed Maatoug told reporters after signing the deal.

'We would like a large proportion of the workers to come from Bangladesh.'  Nearly 25,000 Bangladeshis already work in Libya.

'Apart from manpower, we have also agreed to co-operate in the energy sector,' said Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, foreign affairs adviser to Bangladesh's army-backed interim government.

'We discussed the possibility of Libyan crude oil being processed in our refinery for supplying to Southeast Asian countries,' he added.

Iftekhar and Maatoug said the signing of the deal was a milestone in relations between Dhaka and Tripoli.

Remittances from expatriate Bangladeshis, a key source of foreign exchange for the impoverished south Asian country, hit a record $7.9 billion in the year to June 2008, nearly a third higher than the previous year.-Reuters