A dispute over who gets to send Nepali workers to Malaysia has frozen part of the country's largest labour corridor, with Kathmandu accusing Kuala Lumpur of creating a monopoly that could squeeze out most of Nepal's 1,100 recruitment agencies.
All of the whirlwind began on August 2026, after Malaysia named 25 agencies as principal recruiters who further added 10 subagents which concluded to the total count of 250 agencies, out of about 1,100 licensed agencies. Such act of Malaysia is called to be monopolistic and against to the bilateral labour agreement 2018 between Nepal and Malaysia.
Nepal government has launched an investigation on the history of the agencies named as the principal recruiters.
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