Between expats and general foreign workers

REFERRING to Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran’s recent statement that the government plans to stop foreigners from working in jobs with salaries below RM10,000 and that there were 117,000 expatriates working in Malaysia in 2017, I would like to highlight a few issues.

The government should differentiate between expatriates and the general foreign workers. This is because expatriates bring benefits to the economy through their skills, experience, income tax contribution and spending through house or room rentals, and purchase of cars, food and beverages.