Maldives announces minimum wage for the first time on Monday.
In a ceremony held at Hotel Jen, Economic Minister Fayyaz Ismail signed the resolution setting minimum wages.
Minimum wage has been set for four categories; small businesses, medium businesses, big businesses, and civil service. The minimum wage set for these categories are MVR 4,500, MVR 7,000, MVR 8,000, and MVR 7,000 respectively.
According to the ministry, only fixed allowances will be considered as minimum wage. In-house allowances like food allowances will not be considered for the minimum wage.
"Around 13,000 workers in the tourism industry will benefit from this," Minister Fayyaz said at the ceremony.
He said Maldivians have been discussing the matter of a minimum wage for around 20 years. The delay in instating a minimum wage previously was one of the reasons the ministry faced so many obstacles in setting a minimum wage now, he said.
"If it was set [earlier] we would not have so many hurdles now," Fayyaz said.
He additionally stated that there were concerns over some employees agreeing to such salaries.
While the discussions for setting a minimum wage was being extensively discussed, they realised setting the same wage for employers across the economy would lead to its own set of hurdles.
"The minimum wage was set after considering how much the economy can handle," Fayyaz said.
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