Kuwait creating plan to address demographic imbalance
Foreigners could face 15-year cap on living and working in country
Amid the Covid-19 crisis and increasingly louder cries to address the demographic imbalance in Kuwait, a top government committee presented parliament a master plan that could establish a 25 per cent population quota for foreigners and a 15-year cap on their living and working in the country, Kuwaiti media reported.
Parliamentary sources told Al Rai newspaper that the plan, which has entered the stage of extensive preparations, includes changes to the residency law, new legislation, a quota system for foreigners, and an increase in fees imposed on expats.
Sources said the plan also includes not allowing a visit visa to be converted into a residency visa, not transferring from the government sector to the private sector and not granting residency to those over the age of 60.
Currently, 3.30 million expats live in Kuwait, constituting 70 per cent of its 4.70 million population. Kuwaitis number 1.4 million. Khalil Al Saleh, head of the parliamentary Human Resources Development Committee, said the demographics committee has been given two weeks to present its report.
Government’s vision
“We want to know the mechanism of applying the quota and nationalities that will be dealt with in the future, especially as Kuwaitis do not exceed 30 per cent of the population, and we want to know the government’s vision to address the issue of imbalance in the demographic structure,” he said.
Official figures show that 30.18 million people or 63.35 per cent of the population of the GCC countries are foreigners, while the total number of citizens is 27.31 million.
With a population of 34,2 million, Saudi Arabia tops the six countries in the proportion of citizens to expatriates, with 21.10 million citizens, or 61.6 per cent of the population, and 13.1 million foreigners, or 38.4 per cent of the population. Oman has a population of 4.6 million, of which 2.7 million are Omanis and 1.9 million are expats.
In the UAE, which has a population of about 9.7 million, citizens account for 11.3 per cent, or 1.1 million, while the number of foreigners reached 8.6 million or 88.7 per cent.