Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesian migrant workers in South Korea are to be provided with cellular phones for free in accordance with an instruction from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a manpower official said.

SK Telecom, a company based in Jakarta, is to cooperate with PT OK COM of South Korea to distribute about 10,000 cellphones among Indonesians going to work in South Korea over a period of one year, Jumhur Hidayat, head of the Migrant Workers Placement and Protection Agency (BNP2TKI), said here Thursday.

The South Korean company`s preparedness to provide the cellphones was formally stated in an agreement signed by SK Telecom and PT OK COM representatives at a ceremony attended by Manpower Ministry officials on Thursday.

The first to receive the cellphones would be 21 Indonesian migrant workers who were scheduled to arrive at South Korea`s Incheon international airport on Tuesday (Feb 6).

Junhur said his agency would place more than 10,000 Indonesian migrant workers in South Korea in 2012, adding he hoped all of them would receive a Samsung cellphone.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued his instruction to provide migrant workers with cellphones some time ago in order to make it easier for them to communicate with their families at home and thereby to minimize the possibility of them going missing.

The BNP2TKI has since 2004 placed a total of 34,544 Indonesian workers in South Korea under government-to-government arrangements. (*)

Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
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