E-Paper
Foreign workers in Malaysia to be issued colour-coded I-cards
All foreign workers and expatriates working in Malaysia will have to apply for a colour-coded I-card, which they will be required to carry at all times.
All foreign workers and expatriates working in Malaysia will have to apply for a colour-coded identification card which they will be required to carry at all times, the country's immigration department said on Wednesday.
The country's 2.02 million foreign workers and expatriates have till the end of August next year to apply for the "I-Kad", Immigration Director-General Wahid Md Don was quoted by Bernama as saying.
The high-security colour-coded card, which was introduced for foreign students in the middle of this year, is a travel document which will replace the passport for legitimate foreign workers. Currently Malaysian law stipulates that all foreigners should carry their passports with them at all times.
The card contains security features which facilitates screening and enforcement and its colour will denote the sector a worker is engaged in, Wahid said.
The temporary work permit is blue. Domestic maids would be given a purple card, plantation workers a red card with yellow stripes and those in the other sectors a red one.
Wahid said of the 2.02 million foreign workers in the country, 726,561 or 35.9 per cent were in the manufacturing sector, 343,280 or 17 per cent were in the plantation sector, 317,537 or 15.8 per cent were domestic maids, 285,943 or 14.1 per cent were in the construction sector, 192,200 or 9.5 per cent were in the services sector, and 155,578 or 7.7 per cent in the agriculture sector.
