Local palm oil producers should wean off a reliance on Indonesian and Bangladeshi foreign workers amidst the “severe” shortage of about 120,000 workers, says Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin, Malaysia’s Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister said over the weekend. 

Her call comes following delays in bringing some 32,000 foreign workers to palm oil plantations which could have dire consequences on the nation as the second-largest palm oil producer in the world. 

“Plantation owners must also in the future, be open to workers from countries like India and Pakistan, and not be too dependent on workers from Indonesia and Bangladesh,” the Minister said. 

She acknowledged that the government had in September 2021 approved plans to bring in 32,000 migrant workers for palm oil estates nationwide which had run into issues regarding their permits. 

“The ministry remains cautiously optimistic of achieving this target, if not more, although the issue of permits had been brought to our attention,” she said. 

She assured the Malaysian Estate Owners ’Association (MEOA) that her ministry is currently working closely with several other ministries such as the Human Resources Ministry, Wisma Putra, Immigration Department and Co-operative Commission to look into ways to expeditiously resolve this issue. 

She was responding to MEOA’s recent warning of Malaysia missing a golden opportunity to capitalise on high palm oil prices and could suffer more production losses due to a “severe” shortage of about 120,000 workers. 

MEOA said that the labour shortage could see estate owners losing earnings of between 5 and 10 per cent. 

Foreign workers, mostly from Indonesia, typically make up about 80 per cent of the workforce in Malaysian estates, which numbered about 437,000 at the start of the pandemic. 

In early June, the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) lowered its production outlook to 18.6 million tonnes for the year from an earlier estimate of 18.9 million tonnes. 

Meanwhile, Zuraida urged palm oil producers to also shift towards the use of automation as a long-term solution to cut down their dependency on foreign workers. She noted that the current labour crunch in the palm oil sector will spur planters to start investing in technology in the long term.