One of the factors impacting the investment environment is the facilitation of the approval of expatriate posts and passes. The Immigration Department (IMI) has reduced the time taken to process expatriate applications from 14 days to 7 days.
With PEMUDAH’s intervention, there has been not only reduction in processing time but also improvement in the approval process. In 2008, 97 per cent of the applications were processed within 7 days. In addition, a total of 30,321 passes were issued by the IMI, of which 86 per cent were processed within 3 days.
2. Facilities for Expatriates
The Immigration Department also made improvements by providing certain facilities to expatriates including:
Extending the Expatriate i-Card facility to the whole of Malaysia as of March 2008; and
Improving rules and regulations pertaining to expatriates’ spouses, family members and maids, whereby spouses, family members and maids are given the same treatment as their principals.
The regulations for dependent passes and employment for foreign spouses and expatriates were also amended. These changes were introduced to facilitate the access to talent already available in the country and are captured in three new circulars, effective from 20 November 2008:
Malaysian Immigration Circular No.30/2008 Husbands of expatriates holding Employment Passes will be issued with Dependant Passes;
Malaysian Immigration Circular No.31/2008 Foreign spouses of Malaysians are allowed to work while on Social Visit Passes without having to convert them to Employment Passes; and
Malaysian Immigration Circular No.35/2008 Spouses of expatriates holding Dependant Passes are allowed to work without converting their Dependant Passes to Employment Passes.
