JAKARTA (AFP) - Vice President Hamzah Haz is considering visiting Malaysia to persuade it to reverse a temporary ban on the intake on new Indonesian workers, a labour unionist said today.

"The vice president is considering going to Malaysia to meet Prime Minister Mahathir (Mohamad), together with the manpower minister," Jumhur Hidayat, the chairman of the Association of Free Indonesian Workers' Unions, told reporters after meeting Haz.

Malaysian Deputy Premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced yesterday a temporary halt to the intake of Indonesian workers following a riot last week.

Recruitment reviewed

Mahathir had earlier said the government would review recruitment of foreign workers and give priority to those from countries other than neighbouring Indonesia.

Hidayat, quoted by the Kompas online news service, said a visit by Haz would indicate the importance of the issue.

Apart from the foreign exchange they generate, sending workers abroad reduces social pressures in Indonesia where tens of millions are unemployed or underemployed.

"The one making the statements is Mahathir himself... this visit is certainly important and there should be a result when the president or the vice president goes there," Hidayat said.

Jakarta has already sent two officials to Malaysia to try to help solve the problem.

Manpower Minister Jacob Nuwa Wea has apologised to Malaysia for the riot but urged it not to act indiscriminately against Indonesian workers there, saying that not all were law-breakers,

Violent riot

Some 400 Indonesians staged a protest at a textile factory in the central state of Negeri Sembilan on Jan 17 after police tried to detain 16 of their co-workers for drug abuse.

A total of 147 Indonesians have been arrested after the riot in which police vehicles were overturned and officers stoned. Some 91 have been deported.

Malaysia is home to some 700,000 legal foreign workers, mainly from Indonesia, as well as hundreds of thousands of illegals.

Just three days after the riot about 70 Indonesian construction workers armed with machetes went on the rampage and damaged food stalls run by fellow Indonesians at Cyberjaya, south of Kuala Lumpur.

In December more than 2,000 illegal immigrants, including 1,560 Indonesians, rioted at a detention centre and torched a section of their quarters to escape deportation.

Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said he agreed with Malaysia's penalising of migrant workers involved in the riots.

But he told a parliamentary committee on foreign affairs that he hoped Malaysia would deal with the problem "proportionately".

"Not all migrant workers behave poorly because they also respect the law of the land," he said.