KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 304,358 Malaysians migrated from March 2008 to August 2009 for better education, career and business opportunities. Deputy Foreign Minister Senator A Kohilan Pillay told the Dewan Rakyat today 139,696 Malaysians left the country in 2007.

"Amongst the factors that caused the migration were education, economy such as career and business, and also social factors such as following one’s spouse," he said in reply to Chua Tee Yong (Labis-BN).

Kohilan said the figures were derived from those who registered with Malaysia's representative offices abroad. Asked by Chua whether the higher incidence of migration was a result of the political climate after the March 8, 2008 general election, Kohilan said that was a weak factor.

Kohilan also said the number of people migrating to Australia and the United Kingdom was higher this year because many wanted to study abroad, with students making up almost 50,000 of those who left the country.

In reply to another supplementary question from Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad (Kuala Selangor-PAS) on the brain drain from the increasing migration, Kohilan said the human resources, and science, technology and innovation ministries had worked out a few programmes to bring those experts home.

"Both these ministries have conducted several programmes in a ‘brain gain' effort," he said.