He said businesses in many parts of the Klang Valley are being taken over by foreign workers.

He said many grocery, food and computer shops in Seri Muda Plaza, Section 25, Shah Alam, were run by Bangladeshis.

Businesses in Jalan Silang, located in the heart of the capital city, were being run by Nepalese.

The Myanmars were trading at Kota Raya and Indonesians are slowly taking over the Chow Kit and Segambut business areas, he said.

Somasundram added Bangladeshi businesses were also mushrooming in Salak South, Balakong and in Sungai Besi.

“We have come to know the premises belong to locals, but are being ‘pajak’ (leased) to foreigners to do business.

“There is a sense of loyalty among the foreigners.

“These shops make money because their community supports them. They go to their own people to buy things from their country,” he told FMT when asked on the trend of foreigners taking over local businesses.

Some of the foreign workers, he said, do not even know how to read or write, but have saved up every sen they could by working almost seven days a week, withstanding the hardship of working 10 to 14 hours a day.

“They work very hard. They save money on rental as accommodation is provided by the employer. They don’t pay for power or water, transport to work is provided and they bring food from home.”

He said foreign workers have a large appetite to strike it big in Malaysia and are willing to live a “very thrifty” life to save every ringgit earned.

“From this money, they run various businesses.”

He said the trend was worrying as many Malaysians miss out on the chance to run businesses.

Due to that, he said MTUC have been asking the government on the exact number of foreign workers in Malaysia to keep track of them. However, it has so far only received an estimated number.

Somasundram, who constantly deals with the foreign workers issue in Malaysia, said the home ministry was involved in giving permits to foreign workers to work here.

“But the human resources ministry is the one which knows how many workers are needed.

“Furthermore, once the workers are in the country, it becomes the Labour Department’s (under Human Resources Ministry) problem.”

He added MTUC had many times, for the past 15 years, asked the government to have a tracking system on the number of foreign workers in Malaysia.

He said the only way the government could reverse the trend of more foreign workers taking over local businesses, was by making it easier for Malaysians to do business.

He proposed interest-free loans to encourage youths to run businesses.

“In fact there are a lot of programmes under the Rakan Muda programme to encourage youths to do business. But many are not aware of these programmes.”

He called for an aggressive outreach programme through television and the social media.

Families must also be supportive in encouraging the young to take up these programmes to run businesses, he added.

“Locals are unable to save up as much as foreign workers because they have families to support here, pay rental, take care of transport expenses and other bills.”

Somasundram urged the government to make it harder for foreigners to run businesses in the country, especially the ones that would affect the low- and middle-income earners.

He also hoped for stricter enforcement to nab foreign workers running businesses illegally in the country.

According to the Human Resources Ministry, there are 2.1 million registered migrant workers.

However, the number of overstaying illegal foreigners is even larger, estimated by various sources to be around three million.