Malaysia will formulate its own minimum wage model based on the country's economic situation and taking into account the interests of both the employers and workers, Human Resources Minister Dr S Subramaniam said today.

The model, which would be tabled to the cabinet in October, would also take into account factors in the national and regional employment sectors.

"The data collection for the minimum wage model has been done. The ministry will now meet representatives of each of the sectors to discuss the model before tabling it to the cabinet," he told reporters after declaring open a seminar on productivity-based wages here today.

Subramaniam also said that the ministry was still discussing with the Indonesian authorities on the call by the Malaysian Trades Union Congress for the government to lower the cost of bringing Indonesian maids from the current amount of RM8,000.

"We agree with the call by the MTUC but Indonesia is facing problems with getting their agents to agree to the proposal," he said.

Wages linked to productivity

Subramaniam also said that employers who had paid agents for the cost of bringing in their maids would only be allowed to deduct up to 50 percent from their salaries.

Earlier in his speech, Subramaniam said a total of 72,602 employers had been using the productivity-linked wage system since 1996.

"We expect 600 more employers to use the system which have benefitted 2.8 million workers so far," he said.

For a start, he said the ministry, through the Industry Relations Department, would organise eight interactive seminars involving 300 employers to promote the benefit of such system.

"Some 80 percent of the service sector, which covers among others hotel workers, are already using the productivity-linked wage system," he added.

- Bernama