Kuwait To Cut Migrant Population From 70% To 30%

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THE NUMBERS

According to the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF)projections, except for Egypt and Djibouti, gross domestic product for every country across the Middle East and North Africa region will shrink this year, ranging from negative 1.1% growth for Kuwait to negative 12% for Lebanon to minus 58.7% for Libya.

Due to oil price crash and COVID 19, the Gulf Countries cannot afford to have high Expat-Majority
Hence they are not going to make major policy decisions

Expatriates account for around 70% of Kuwait’s total population, with Kuwaitis constituting 28%-32% of the total population.
Kuwait’s population 44-46 lakh (latest numbers) That means 32 lakh expats working in Kuwait

Nearly 9.5 lakh Indians live in Kuwait
Egyptians are the second largest expat community in Kuwait, numbering more than 600,000 workers.
The population of Pakistanis in Kuwait is around 130,000.

Kuwait’s prime minister has said the country’s expatriate population should be more than halved to 30% of the total, as the coronavirus pandemic and a slump in oil prices send shudders through Gulf economies.

The comments are a rare public acknowledgment by the executive of one of Kuwait’s most contentious issues, and follow a renewed push by lawmakers to reduce the number of overseas workers, particularly unskilled labor, with the economy under intense strain. MPs are proposing a quota system as well as replacing all expatriate government employees, estimated at 100,000, with Kuwaitis.

Indians constitute the largest expatriate community in all the six countries that comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council –the GCC –Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
In almost all the countries Indians are the largest expatriate population, constituting more than 30 percent of the total expatriate work force in the region. The annual remittances from the GCC to India amount to a whopping almost $45 billion.
Soon there will be major changes in this.