KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - MALAYSIA on Tuesday said it would renew or issue new visas for Indian priests, temple musicians and artisans after a ban earlier this year stirred concern among non-Muslim groups.

Religious groups were up in arms in January over the sudden immigration ban on the three groups, mainly Hindu and Sikh, amid a series of rows over race and religion in recent months.

'The Cabinet agreed to allow their services to be continued in the country and for special categories only,' human resources minister S. Subramaniam told the state news agency Bernama.

Mr Subramanian, who is secretary-general of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), part of the ruling coalition, did not elaborate on the special categories.

Mr Subramaniam said the Cabinet wanted locals to be trained in the long term to reduce the country's dependency on foreign labour, Bernama reported.

The head of Malaysia's Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism welcomed the government's decision.

'There are few foreign priests needed in the country so we and the Malaysian Gurdwara Council will be meeting with Subramaniam and the Home Affairs Minister Syed Hamid Albar to work out the details,' Mr A. Vaithilingam told reporters.

'At the moment, we have not received any reports from temples that applications for priests, artisans and musicians have been refused and most applications are being processed,' he said.

Race and religious issues came to a head in November last year with unprecedented protests alleging ethnic Indians faced discrimination at the hands of majority Muslim Malays.

The government also told a Catholic paper earlier this year not to use the word 'Allah' to refer to God, and threatened to revoke its licence.

Taoist Malaysians are also upset over a government ban on the construction of the world's tallest Taoist Goddess of the Sea statue on Borneo island.

About 60 per cent of the nation's 27 million people are ethnic Malay Muslims while the rest are mostly ethnic Indians and Chinese who are largely Hindu, Buddhist or Christian. -- AFP