Taiwan to end ban on RI workers

Taiwan to end ban on RI workers

JAKARTA: Taiwan is likely next month to lift a ban on the recruitment of new Indonesian workers, a Taipei official said Friday.

He said Taiwan's labour minister, Chen Chu, and her Indonesian counterpart, Jacob Nuwa Wea, held talks here Thursday and agreed that Jakarta could resume sending new workers by March.

"Both sides met yesterday and they concluded that the ban can probably be removed next month," said the official, Derek Hsu, of the Taipei Economic and Trade Office.

Officials from the Indonesian manpower ministry could not immediately comment.

Taiwan suspended the recruitment of Indonesian workers in August 2002 after Jakarta failed to solve problems involving high fees charged by labour brokers and runaway workers on the island.

There were 56,437 Indonesian workers on the island as of end- December 2003, compared with 99,465 when the ban was imposed.

The ban has been complicated by fraught bilateral relations. These turned sour in late 2002 when Taiwan President Chen Shui- bian was forced to abort a clandestine visit to the central Java city of Yogyakarta after a media leak.

Media reports in Taipei had suggested Jakarta deliberately made the leak to avoid angering China, which had strongly opposed the planned trip.

Jakarta and Taipei do not have diplomatic ties. Millions of Indonesians work abroad, relieving the pressure on an economy with unemployment of at least eight million.-AFP