Monday, Mar 18, 2013

Dubai: One million jobs are up for grabs in Malaysia at the moment and the Malaysian government is wooing its people working overseas, including those in the UAE, to return to Malaysia and help contribute to the country’s economic growth. “The core thing is that Malaysia is growing very fast. We have more jobs than people to fill them up because our generation is very young. We are engaging Malaysians because from our perspective, Malaysians abroad are assets for Malaysia,” Sherene Azura Azli, general manager of the Malaysian Diaspora Outreach at Talent Corporation, told Gulf News at a networking dinner in Dubai on Friday.

Talent Corporation is a company under the Malaysian prime minister’s department tasked to attract top Malaysian professionals worldwide to come back to Malaysia through the Returning Expert Programme (REP).

REP is a long-term initiative that offers several tax incentives to qualified Malaysian experts and permanent residency status to their foreign spouses, among others.

Azli said that of the one million jobs available, 300,000 are for professionals while the remaining 700,000 require skilled and semi-skilled workers. She added that Talent Corporation has met with nearly 10,000 Malaysians in 20 countries around the world to recruit professionals from certain niche skills especially the oil and gas sector.

The UAE has the biggest number of Malaysian expatriates in the region. Currently, of the estimated one million Malaysians who live and work overseas, over 5,000 are in the UAE, deployed in various sectors such as oil and gas, aviation, IT, business, and hospitality.

“This is the best platform for them to attract Malaysian professionals who have been here for many many years should they decide to serve the country, especially in the sector of oil and gas. This will be a good platform for them to explore the good incentives offered not only by the government but also by the private sector in Malaysia,” Malaysian Consul General Ahmad Fadil Shamsuddin told Gulf News.

Malaysian expatriates who are not yet ready to return to their country may still give back to Malaysia through collaboration with Talent Corporation by sharing their expertise while working abroad.

Talent Corporation’s visit to Dubai is the third in a series of activities planned under its international Outreach and Engagement sessions in the Middle East from March 13 to 18.

For more information on REP, visit www.talentcorp.com.my.

By Janice Ponce de Leon Staff Reporter

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