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Indonesian officials are making final preparations for the signing of a long-awaited agreement on migrant workers with Malaysia, an official said on Tuesday.

A joint working group consisting of representatives from the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration and National Police met with Indonesia’s ambassador to Malaysia, Da’i Bachtiar, in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, said Abdul Malik Harahap, secretary to the director general of labor training and placement at the Manpower Ministry.

At the meeting, preparations for the signing of the Indonesia-Malaysia memorandum of understanding on migrant workers were discussed, Abdul said in an official statement.

“The discussion for the MoU has been going on for the last few months to agree on several crucial provisions,” he said. “Now it has reached a final point, we expect that the MoU can be signed soon.”

Malaysia has already agreed to several of the provisions, such as the formation of a joint task force and migrant workers’ rights to hold their own passports and have one day off a week.

“Conditions regarding placement fees and minimum wages were the toughest discussion points,” Abdul, although he added that Malaysia appeared to be determined to resolve the differences in order to end an Indonesian moratorium on the sending of migrant workers that was issued last year.

“We can soon revoke our moratorium,” Abdul said.

Iskandar Maula, director of overseas workers at the ministry, said progress had been made even before the working group went to Malaysia.

“We already met with Malaysian representatives in Jakarta and managed to agree on the cost structure,” he said. “However, they still declined to start negotiating a minimum wage standard.”

Malaysia, he said, had no minimum wage for migrant workers, but Jakarta was negotiating for it to be set at 800 Malaysian ringgit ($240) per month.

Iskandar said the joint working group had also discussed the handling of illegal Indonesian migrants in Malaysia.

“There has been an increase in cases of smuggled workers in recent months even though we are still under the moratorium,” he said.

In November, Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said the moratorium would be lifted only after improvements were made to programs to prepare migrant workers being sent overseas, including a requirement that they undergo a minimum of 200 hours of standard training.

According to reports from the labor attache in Malaysia, more than three tekongs , or unregistered labor suppliers, behind the surge in trafficking were currently being investigated.