The government's crackdown on illegal immigrants has dealt a severe blow to the construction and agriculture sectors which are heavily dependent on cheap foreign labour, industry officials said today.

Immigration officials and volunteers today launched a controversial operation to round up, whip and deport hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants following the end of a four-month amnesty.

Most of Malaysia's manual workers come from Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh as locals shun the dirty and dangerous jobs.

Malaysia had estimated there were nearly a million illegal workers in the country. Some 382,000 took advantage of an amnesty declared at the end of October and had departed before it expired at midnight Monday.

Their departure and the ensuing roundup targeting the other hundreds of thousands of illegals has already been felt in the construction industry.

Completion of the RM550 million Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre has been delayed due to a labour shortage, a senior industry source familiar with the project told AFP.

"We used to have about 1,500 to 1,800 workers a day at the site. Now we are only having some 800 workers," said the official who wished to remain anonymous.

He said the convention centre was originally due to be completed by the end of December but had been pushed back to the end of March.

Demand for higher wages

Sunway City Bhd managing director Ngian Siew Siong told AFP he expected a slowdown in the construction industry in the coming months.

"It will definitely hurt the industry. Completion of projects will be delayed and there will be pressure on existing labour to demand higher wages," he said.

Ngian urged the government to speed up the return of foreign workers and simplify the application process to work here.

Human Resources Minister Fong Chan Onn said the government had received many complaints from the agriculture sector and food operators that have had to shut down operations because many workers had left the country to renew their travel documents.

"But the process of legalisation must go on and we require them to go back to their home country to get their proper documents," he was quoted as saying by the Star newspaper.

Fong said workers from Vietnam, Thailand, China and Burma would be considered to meet the shortage.

"This is part of our back-up plan in case these Indonesian illegal workers decide not to return as we are facing a shortage of workers especially in the small and medium enterprises, plantations, factories and farms," he said.

Some 450 civilian volunteers and 13 immigration officers carried out the first raid shortly after midnight on a construction site in Cheras, south of Kuala Lumpur, which netted 62 Indonesians, officials said.

Pushing for deportation

Alias, 35, from Flores, was among those detained.

"I borrowed 20 million rupiah (US$200) to come to Malaysia a year ago. I am dead now," he said.

Alias said he entered Malaysia by boat after crossing the narrow Malacca Strait and was taken by lorry to the construction site.

Immigration officials said the illegals would likely be charged in court but one senior civilian volunteer official said he would push for their deportation.

An estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants are still in the country, many of whom sought jobs in the construction, plantation and service industries in the face of unemployment at home.