Jokowi Denies Issue of 10mn Chinese Workers Working in Indonesia

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko Widodo or Jokowi denied the issue stating that 10 million foreign workers (TKA) from China are working in Indonesia. According to him, there are only 23,000 people.

The amount is less than the number of the Indonesian workers who work in China, which is 80,000 people. “People who work in Malaysia are 1,2 million. Malaysia keeps quiet. The legal workers are 1.2 million, the illegal one maybe 2 million,” said Jokowi while delivering a speech at the Opening of the Ulema Cadre Education XII in Cibinong, Bogor, West Java, Wednesday, August 8.

The event was organized by the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), Bogor Regency. Jokowi explained that some Chinese workers only worked for a while in Indonesia. Some of them only work for 4-6 months.

Jokowi said the Chinese workers were working to install turbines or smelters, where Indonesians were considered unable to do the work.

Overall, Jokowi considered that the number of foreign workers in Indonesia was relatively small, where the number was only around 0,03 percent compared to the entire population of Indonesia. The percentage is claimed to be much smaller than the percentage in Saudi Arabia which reached 33 percent or in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which reached 80 percent.

The number of legal workers from Indonesia is said to reach 500,000 people in Saudi Arabia. “They are happy, there is no problem,” said Jokowi. Jokowi hopes that various slanders about the issue of Chinese foreign workers are not developing in the community. “I don’t think that’s good for this country,” he said.

BISNIS.COM