JAKARTA: The National Board for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Overseas Workers (BP2MI) will send 2,686 workers to South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan.

BP2MI head Benny Rhamdani said 126 workers will be sent to Malaysia via West Kalimantan under a private-to-private labour placement programme.

A total of 2,246 workers will be sent to South Korea via a government-to-government programme while 314 will be sent to Taiwan, he said in a statement.

Indonesia enjoys remittances from migrant workers, dubbed “Remittance Heroes”, with average remittances from 2015 to 2019 reaching US$9.8bil annually.

Workers are offered loan schemes without guarantors so that they would not sell property or take out personal loans to use as working capital, said Benny.

Dedicated lounges are available at Soekarno Hatta International Airport here and will be expanded to Medan this year. This will be followed by Semarang, Mataram, Surabaya and Denpasar in the near future.

A free medical clinic for families of migrant workers will also be provided.

Plans for subsidised housing schemes as well as relaxed Customs regulations on the entry of goods upon their return are also in the works, said Benny.

BP2MI is a government agency responsible for implementing policies relating to the service and protection of Indonesian migrant workers in an integrated manner. – Bernama