Foreign governments are pressing authorities and executives in Saudi Arabia to ensure that local construction firms make delayed salary payments to thousands of workers, a sign of pressure on the kingdom's economy due to low oil prices. About 10 million people, largely from south Asia, southeast Asia and other parts of the Middle East, work in Saudi Arabia. Countries taking up the cause of the unpaid include the Philippines. In Manila, Labour Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz told Reuters on Monday that the Philippine embassy in Riyadh was contacting Saudi authorities to resolve the issue. Baldoz has assigned her official in charge of workers' welfare to tackle the issue. "I am deploying ... a fact-finding mission headed by Undersecretary Ciriaco Lagunzad to meet with the workers, employers and competent authorities," she said. In recent weeks, the French ambassador to Riyadh sent a letter to the chief executive of Saudi Oger, one of the country's biggest builders with about 38,000 employees, asking him to resolve the cases of French staff who had not been paid for four months, a diplomatic source said. Bangladeshi diplomats said they had contacted major Saudi construction firms to discuss wages that had gone unpaid for over two months. In a brief statement to Reuters, the Saudi labor ministry said all private sector companies were obliged to pay salaries on time and that it would impose sanctions against firms which were late. It did not elaborate, or comment on individual cases. (Reuters)