KUALA LUMPUR: The government is considering an imposition of more levies eventually to reduce foreign worker count in selected industries, said Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani.
“We will impose more levies. At this moment the levies are already high so we will give them time. We need to manage our reliance on foreign workers,” he said at the sidelines of MBSB Bank’s launch at KL Sentral on Monday.
“We understand that we cannot have zero foreign workers, we still need them but we need to reduce the numbers. Industries that rely heavily on foreign workers: we have to do away with this,” he said further.
“If we want to ensure the country can afford the minimum wage of what Bank Negara has indicated. We need to put more attention into automating our industries. We have to start using artificial intelligence etc,” Johari added.
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