Malaysia is one of Asia's biggest employers of foreign labour. But recently, cases of deaths, abuse and forced labour have come to light. What is going on? Who is protecting these migrant workers?
Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui said
there were now 473,081 foreigners working in places like oil-palm estates, rubber
plantations and cocoa plantations, while local workers totalled only about 300,000.
<p>“This is very worrying because the increasingly high costs of importing
foreign labourers into the country is affecting our competitive edge in these
money-spinning sectors.</p>
<p>“Up to 35% of the costs of production incurred by companies in these sectors
goes into paying the salaries of foreign workers, their levy, their medical
expenses and other related costs,” he said.</p>
<p>As at June 30, 2006, out of the 473,081 foreign workers, 332,815 were Indonesians
and 27,273 Indians. The rest were from the Philippines, Nepal and others.</p>
<p>“Malaysia urgently needs to offset this high cost of production because
if our cost of labour is so much higher compared to Indonesia, we will lose
out in terms of our competitiveness in our export market,” he told a press
conference here.</p>
<p>He said Malaysia must be more efficient in terms of costs of production and
also increase its yield at steady rate and create new markets all the time,
especially in Europe and the Americas.</p>
<p>“We are now neck-and-neck with Indonesia in the world market in terms
of oil palm export. Five years ago, Malaysia controls up to 70% of the global
market. Now, Malaysia and Indonesia are about 50% each.”</p>
<p>Chin said Malaysian palm oil producers must increase its annual yield from
the current four tonnes per hectare per year to at least six tonnes by using
better quality clones and fertilisers if they want to keep ahead of the aggressive
Indonesian competitors.
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