Expatriate corporate leaders have welcomed the government's offer of the Residence Pass-Talent (RP-T) status to foreign talents that enables them to work here for 10 years, said Talent Corporation Malaysia Bhd (TalentCorp) Chief Executive Officer Johan Mahmood Merican.

Johan, who was speaking to reporters after a meeting between Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, expatriate corporate leaders and TalentCorp here today, said to date, more than 1,000 RP-T passes have been approved.

At the meeting, Najib personally offered RP-T status to 21 corporate leaders, foreign investors and experts in their respective fields.

Johan said expatriate corporate leaders are happy that the RP-T gives security of tenure if they plan to stay here for a long time and work with local talents to improve skills.

He said TalentCorp will discuss with the Immigration Department to cater for experts in knowledge intensive industries flying in for short durations.

Legoland Malaysia General Manager Siegfried Boerst, one of the expatriate corporate leaders at the meeting, said co-operation between industry and universities must be strengthened to raise student skill levels.

He said a strategic and well-planned human resources programme between both parties can improve student skill levels even before they finish their studies and enter the workforce.

"When students come out of university we can introduce the workplace straight away," he told Bernama.

Google Malaysia country manager Sajith Sivanandan said foreign talents can help the government develop a core pool of local talents to meet the critical skills requirements and drive foreign direct investments in line with the Economic Transformation Programme.

"The fastest way to do that is to get high quality talents from overseas to come and train them," he said, adding it is great to see a policy that could make this happen very quickly.