Kuwait updates residency law, to cut number of expats

Kuwait said it will lower the number of expats living in the country within months through a new residency law, national daily Kuwait Times reported citing Interior Minister Anas Al-Saleh.

A new draft expat quota bill, approved by the legal and legislative committee of Kuwait's National Assembly, could put foreign citizens in danger of leaving the Gulf nation, if become law. The bill proposes to reduce the number of Indians to 15% of their total population, reported Kuwait Times.

A proposed bill which aims to reduce the Kuwait's expat community by 40 percent may come into effect later this year. While India's is the largest expat community, there are about 3.4 million foreigners in Kuwait including Sri Lankans.

The state will focus on “skilled,” migrants rather than laborers, and 1.3 million foreigners, who “are either illiterate or can merely read and write,” were not the country’s priority, Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem said.

“I understand that we recruit doctors and skilled manpower and not unskilled laborers. This is an indication that there is a distortion. Visa traders have contributed in increasing this figure,” Al-Ghanem said.

The upgraded draft law would also limit the number of foreign nationals recruited by companies each year and will include regulations based on their skills, he added.

The Kuwait parliament aims to have the legislation ready by October, prior to the November elections, Al-Ghanem said.

Last month, Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah said that the Gulf state would like expat numbers to reduce to 30 per cent of the country’s population – down from 70 per cent at present.

That would require cutting down the number of foreign workers by around 2.5 million.