Yahya Hassan Al-Maqbool, chairman of the recruitment committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), said the chambers in Riyadh, Makkah and Jeddah have taken a joint stance on this issue in response to the anti-Saudi campaign by a section of the Indonesian media.

“We’ll hold a meeting at the headquarters of the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Riyadh to discuss other alternatives including recruiting from other Asian and African countries,” Al-Maqbool told Arab News.

There have been differences between Saudi authorities and Indonesian manpower exporters on the salary of maids and drivers. The anti-Saudi media campaign in Indonesia following reports of mistreatment of maids by some Saudi employers has exacerbated the situation.

Indonesian authorities have changed regulations regarding recruitment of house servants, saying employers should pay SR6,000 for maids and SR4,200 for drivers, and that the visas should be used within 45 days. There have been talks between the two sides to improve the conditions for the recruitment of Indonesian workers.

In a previous statement, Ramli Saud, deputy chairman of the Indonesian Labor Commission, said the perception about Indonesia being the exporter of house servants should be changed.

“We have well-qualified and skilled manpower to do various types of jobs, especially for industrial jobs,” Saud said. “We are capable of supplying workers specialized in nursing, medicine, engineering, information technology, mining, industries, transport, travel and tourism and construction,” he said.

Saudi Arabia has recruited about a million workers from Indonesia with house servants comprising 97 percent of these workers. “We have told Saudi businessmen that our country is not the supplier of house servants only,” he pointed out.