Minister Luhut: Only 800 Chinese Illegal Workers in Indonesia
23 December 2016 22:14 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut Binsar Panjaitan dismissed a claim saying that as many as 10 million Chinese migrant workers had been shipped to Indonesia.
Luhut clarified that the 10-million figure was the target set by the government for Chinese tourist visits to Indonesia. To this date, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Indonesia reached 1.3 million people.
“The number was misunderstood as the number of Chinese migrant workers in Indonesia. Our data shows that there are only 800 illegal Chinese migrant workers,” he said during a press conference at his office in Jakarta on Friday, December 23, 2016.
The Minister said that the number was reasonable due to the size of Indonesian territory.
“If anyone says 20,000 [illegal workers], tell them to see me. We’ll check who’s right. Don’t manipulate people with misinformation,” he asserted.
Earlier, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo also dismissed the rumor, as saying that the number of Chinese migrant workers in Indonesia is around 21,000 people.
During a working visit to Japan a while ago, Luhut found that Japan managed to attract 40 million tourists from China. Due to the high number of Chinese tourists visiting Japan, Luhut revealed that mandarin writings can be found in several spots in Japan.
ANGELINA ANJAR SAWITRI
