The government today said it is confident that Pakistani workers who began arriving at the weekend to plug a critical labour shortage do not pose a security threat.

Home Affairs Ministry Secretary-General Aseh Che Mat said Pakistani authorities had carefully screened the workers to ensure they were not involved in any suspect activities.

"We have been assured that elements that might create instability in this country would not be brought in," Aseh was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.

The first batch of 40 Pakistani workers arrived on Saturday at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Malaysia is one of the largest importers of foreign labour in Asia. Foreign workers, both legal and illegal, number about 2.6 million of its 10.5 million workforce.

The labour shortage has been caused by the departure of nearly 400,000 immigrants, mostly from Indonesia but also from the Philippines, Burma, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, in a three-month amnesty which ended in March.

The acute labour crunch prompted the government to fast-track the recruitment of some 100,000 Pakistanis amid fears it would aggravate a slowdown in economic growth this year.

The government has also been looking for workers from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Burma and Vietnam.

About 1,000 Pakistani workers, the first batch of an intake of 100,000, are expected to arrive in Malaysia by mid-2005.