First batch of Viet workers lands in Malaysia

It is part of a bilateral agreement that KL signed to cut dependence on Indonesian workers and do away with illegals

HO CHI MINH CITY - The first batch of skilled Vietnamese workers has arrived to work in Malaysia, officially opening the Vietnamese labour market in this Asean member country, said officials.

The 27 workers will be employed at Sunplas Industries in Seremban, 100 km south of Kuala Lumpur.

All the workers are skilled in various high-tech industries such as electronics, and the assembly and manufacture of television sets and computers.

The Southern Centre of Employment Development and its Malaysian partners arranged for the workers to travel from Vietnam to their new place of employment.

As part of an agreement in February between Malaysia and Vietnam, Malaysia was to recruit about 100,000 to 200,000 Vietnamese workers in the months to follow.

The hiring plan followed a crackdown on migrant labour in Malaysia which is aimed at easing the nation's dependence on Indonesian workers.

The Vietnamese will be limited mainly to working in the construction and plantation sectors, which is part of Malaysia's plan to segment the labour force by nationality.

Other technicians and workers will travel to Malaysia through authorised overseas employment companies such as government firms Sovilaco and Sona, the Ministry of Transport's LOD and Tracimexco as well as the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development's Lasec Enterprise.

Vietnamese Minister of Labour, Invalid and Social Affairs Nguyen Thi Hang has said that Vietnamese workers who applied for employment abroad should have no criminal record.

They would also have to undergo language classes and training to understand the laws of the host country.

Malaysia has nearly 770,000 registered foreign workers, including more than 566,000 Indonesians.

It also has hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.

Police and soldiers on Tuesday ended a massive three-month operation to clear illegal immigrants from Indonesia and the Philippines in the East Malaysian state of Sabah.

They rounded up thousands of people and bulldozed hundreds of homes.

Illegal immigrants are seen increasingly as a security threat.

Malaysia revamped its policy on foreign workers after a riot in January by Indonesian textile workers during a police drug raid.

Under the new laws, Indonesians will be limited to plantation or domestic work.

The government has said it will begin to look for workers from other parts of Asia to replace the Indonesians. -- Viet Nam News/Asia News Network