SEPANG, Aug 28 ― The Cabinet is to finalise setting the minimum wage for the private sector at its meeting this week or next, Human Resource Minister M. Kulasegaran said today.

He said the government would set a uniform starting salary for the private sector in the peninsula, Sabah and Sarawak.

“The Cabinet paper on the proposal has been submitted to the Cabinet. It will come up for deliberation soon, either this week or next week,” he said to reporters.

Kulasegaran had earlier seen off at the KL International Airport the national contingent to the Asean Skills Competition 2018 in Bangkok.

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He said the National Wages Consultative Technical Committee had conducted studies and consulted trade unions, employers, NGOs and others.

On the Asean Skills Competition, Kulasegaran said Malaysia targeted to secure more gold medals in the competition scheduled for Aug 26 to Sept 4.

He said the 48-member Malaysian contingent of students of public and private skills training institutions and public and private institutions of higher learning would compete in 24 disciplines.

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“The Malaysian strength lies in hairdressing, cooking, welding and industrial automation, where the gold medals can be won,” he said.

The Asean Skills Competition is a biennial skills competition among the Asean member countries to promote and upgrade skills standards in the region and consequently to the international level.

The participants are below 22 years of age except in the mechatronics discipline where participants are aged 25 and below.

Malaysia’s best outing in the competition was in 2016 in Kuala Lumpur where it emerged the overall champion by winning 22 gold medals.

Skills Development Department director-general Nidzam Kamarulzaman, who is the chef de mission of the contingent, said Malaysia had drawn up a strategy to ensure excellent performance at the 2018 competition.

“Our target is to bring back more than 10 gold medals. We expect stiff competition from the host country, Thailand,” he said. ― Bernama