Human resources minister M Saravanan today acknowledged the issue of a lack of foreign domestic workers arriving in Malaysia due to the various movement control orders since March 18 last year.

He said a virtual discussion with Indonesian manpower minister Ida Fauziyah was held on May 6 to discuss signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the recruitment and placement of domestic helpers as soon as possible.

“However, negotiations were postponed following a lockdown in Jakarta from June 15 to 28, apart from several Covid-19 positive cases among officers in Indonesia’s manpower ministry,” he said in a statement.

According to Saravanan, discussions between both parties will only resume once Indonesia ends its lockdown and the ministry’s staff return to the office.

He noted that Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had reached an agreement with Indonesian President Joko Widodo to expedite the MoU during his visit there in February.

He also said a large portion of foreign domestic workers in Malaysia are Indonesian, with 73,173 from the republic as at Feb 28 this year.