Some 2,000 Chinese coffee shops and 400 Indian-Muslim and banana leaf restaurants ceased operations in 2017, says a joint committee representing the owners. They attributed the closures to not having enough workers, including foreign workers. In Sarawak, the state government has been incurring losses of RM1 billion annually in the palm oil industry since 2012 due to uncollected fresh fruit bunches (FFBs) arising from shortage in the number of harvesters. Tighter restrictions on foreign labor in Malaysia and Thailand have pushed out millions of Southeast Asian migrant workers, driving up wages and potentially threatening a growth model reliant on freedom of movement and cheap labor, according to Nikkei Asian Review.