KL trims foreign labor

KL trims foreign labor

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysia has reduced the intake of foreign workers to 150,000 this year from 320,000 last year to curb an outflow of the local currency, a senior official said Monday.

Foreign workers remit some 500 million ringgit (US$132 million) every year but this was unavoidable as there was no control over salary repatriation, said finance ministry parliamentary secretary Hashim Ismail.

"As foreign workers are still needed for the country's economic growth, the government has taken measures to reduce their number to the minimum," the official news agency Bernama quoted him as saying in parliament.

Hashim said they were only allowed to work in certain sectors such as construction, plantation and manufacturing. Foreigners must pay 1,200 ringgit each as an employment levy to the government, he said.

As of February Malaysia was home to some 700,000 legal foreign workers, mostly from Indonesia, Bangladesh and the Philippines, as well as tens of thousands of illegal immigrants.