KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers Association (MARGMA) has requested that the Home Ministry review the Employer Mandatory Commitment (EMC) ruling, which took effect yesterday, mandating that employers pay their foreign workers’ levy.
A couple of days ago, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announced that employers will henceforth be responsible for paying the levy for their foreign workers.
Zahid, who is also home minister, said employers will no longer be allowed to deduct from the wages of their foreign workers to pay the levy under the EMC.
“This is all too sudden, and is detrimental to medical device manufacturers who are already having to bear mounting production costs,” said MARGMA president Denis Low Jau Foo.
“The cumulative effect of the levy is a very hefty amount. We appeal to the government to nurture manufacturers to improve on the country's exports because we are facing acute competition from neighbours,” he told the New Straits Times.
“We seek a dialogue with Zahid to appeal to his office to better understand the challenging situation medical glove manufacturers are facing,” Low said in a telephone interview today.
By shifting the burden of levy payment to employers, MARGMA concurred with Malaysian Employers Federation executive director Shamsuddin Bardan that foreign workers in Malaysia could remit as much as RM5 billion per year to their countries of origin.
On the separate issue of gas tariff changes, MARGMA had earlier expressed relief that the Energy Commission had lowered the natural gas tariff by 2.74 per cent, or RM0.40 per mmBtu, for six months from Jan to June 2017.
However, in line with other trade bodies, MARGMA has objected to a planned gas price hike in the second half of this year, amounting to 22.6 per cent, rising from RM26.71 per mmBtu in Jan 2017 to RM32.74 per mmBtu by mid-2019.
Having elaborated on the economic difficulties faced by steel millers, the Malaysian Iron and Steel Industry Federation (MISIF) has reportedly urged the government to impose a moratorium on gas price hikes for at least the next two years.