NEW DELHI (Aug 22): Hiring migrant workers from India to Malaysia will now be more transparent, fair and orderly, while avoiding bad practices such as exploitation with the signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Malaysian and Indian governments here on Tuesday.

Human Resources Minister Steven Sim Chee Keong said the original MOU had lapsed in 2014, resulting in almost 10 years of no clear guidelines for managing the recruitment of workers from India.

"Despite that, more than 133,000 Indian workers still enter Malaysia even though there are no guidelines between the two countries.

"With the signing of this new MOU, the hiring of workers from India will now be more transparent, fair and orderly, while avoiding bad practices such as the exploitation of migrant workers that can have a negative impact on the country and local workers," he told Malaysian reporters here.

Steven Sim accompanied Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who ended his three-day official visit to India Wednesday.

The MOU regarding the recruitment, employment and repatriation of workers, saw the exchange of documents between Steven Sim and the Indian Foreign Minister, Dr S Jaishankar.

Anwar and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, together witnessed the signing of the MOU at Hyderabad House here on Tuesday.

Steven Sim said the second MOU was signed between TalentCorp Malaysia and a skills development centre in India aimed at developing an integrated skills training ecosystem and job matching.

In the employment sector, he said six critical sectors in Malaysia need migrant workers from India, including the service sector, plantations and agriculture.

In addition, there are over 85,000 highly skilled workers from India working in Malaysia in engineering and technical fields.

Meanwhile, Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo, who signed an MOU with the Indian government regarding cooperation in the field of digital technology, said agencies under his ministry such as MDEC will play an important role in implementing this MOU, with the close cooperation of the Malaysian and Indian governments.

He said the MOU also emphasised the importance of building talent in the field of cyber security in Malaysia, ensuring that every company has sufficient exposure to the growing cyber security threats. During his trip, Anwar also held a roundtable discussion with 31 companies and captains of industry from various sectors in India, including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, electronics, insulin production and logistics.

Anwar’s last order of business here before returning to Kuala Lumpur was a meeting with Muslim leaders, including Syed Ahmed Bukhari, imam of Delhi’s Jama Mosque, and Mahmood A Maddani, president of the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind.

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