Wednesday May 11, 03:04 PM - KUALA LUMPUR, (AFP) - Malaysian oil palmplantations are losing up to 70 million ringgit (18 million dollars) amonth because of labour shortages after hundreds of thousands of illegalimmigrants were expelled, a report said.

"The losses are due to the shortage of workers available to harvest oilpalm fruits which are highly perishable," Malaysian Employers' Federationexecutive director Shamsuddin Bardan told the New Straits Times.

The repatriation of some 400,000 illegal immigrants, mainly low-wageIndonesian workers, during a four-month amnesty that ended in March hasleft a yawning labour gap in Malaysia's agricultural, construction,manufacturing and services sectors.

It has led to industry losses running into hundreds of millions of dollarsand sparked fears it may exacerbate a slowdown in economic growth, whichis seen at 5.0-6.0 percent this year, down from 7.1 percent in 2004,analysts say.

The government has devised a scheme under which expelled illegal workerswould be processed in Indonesia and re-admitted to Malaysia as legalemployees but has complained of delays in the system and has begunrecruiting workers from other countries.

It has agreed to take in 100,000 Pakistanis and 1,100 have already arrivedin the country, Deputy Home Affairs Minister Tan Chai Ho told the NewStraits Times.

Malaysia is also seeking workers from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar andVietnam to alleviate the acute labour crunch.

The departure of illegal immigrants caused a shortage of some 200,000workers in the manufacturing sector, 150,000 in construction, 50,000 inplantations and 20,000 in the services sector, the cabinet has been told.