800,000 Indians may be forced to leave as Kuwait approves expat quota bill

[karthikc]

A total of eight lakh Indians could be forced to leave Kuwait as its National Assembly committee has approved a draft expat quota bill seeking to reduce the number of foreign workers in the Gulf country.

The National Assembly’s legal and legislative committee has determined that the expat quota bill is constitutional.

According to the bill, Indians should not exceed 15% of the population. This could result in 8,00,000 Indians leaving Kuwait, as the Indian community constitutes the largest expat community in the country, totalling 1.45 million, the Gulf News reported, citing a Kuwaiti newspaper.

The current population of Kuwait is 4.3 million, with Kuwaitis making up 1.3 million of the population, and expats accounting for 3 million.

Amid a slump in oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a spike in anti-expat rhetoric as lawmakers and government officials call for reducing the number of foreigners in Kuwait.

Last month, Kuwait’s Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al Khalid Al Sabah proposed reducing the number of expats from 70% to 30% of the population, the report said.

Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem told Kuwait TV that he and a group of lawmakers will submit to the Assembly a comprehensive draft law calling for a gradual reduction of expats in Kuwait.

Kuwait has a real problem in its population structure, in which 70% are expats, the Speaker said, adding that what is more serious is that 1.3 million of the 3.35 million expats “are either illiterate or can merely read and write”, the people Kuwait does not really need, the Kuwait Times reported.

“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, Mr. Ghanem said.

The Speaker said the draft law they intend to file will propose to impose a cap on the number of expats, whose numbers must decrease gradually by stating that this year expats will be 70 per cent, next year 65 per cent and so on, the report said.

The expat quota bill will now be referred to the concerned committee for consideration.

According to the Indian embassy in Kuwait, there are about 28,000 Indians working for the Kuwaiti Government in various jobs like nurses, engineers in national oil companies and a few as scientists.

The majority of Indians (5.23 lakh) are employed in private sectors. In addition, there are about 1.16 lakh dependents. Out of these, there are about 60,000 Indian students studying in 23 Indian schools in the country.

The bill will now be transferred to the respective committee so that a comprehensive plan is created. It proposes similar quotas for other nationalities. Kuwait is a top source of remittances for India. In 2018, India received nearly $4.8 billion from Kuwait as remittances.

Foreigners have accounted for the majority of Kuwait’s COVID-19 cases as the disease spread among migrant workers living in overcrowded housing.

According to latest data from Johns Hopkins University, more than 49,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported in Kuwait. Globally, more than 5 lakh people have died and over 11 million have been infected by COVID-19.

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[gani999]

I know an Indian dentist in Kuwait who was my sister's classmate in high-school. She is super rich, and is infact, something like a page three celebrity there. She once told me that there are plenty of Indians like her in Kuwait.
I doubt the 8 lakh Indians are going to be the super-rich types. They'll probably all be poor labourers from Bihar and UP.

The question is whether Kuwait can sustain the sudden exit of all these blue-collared labourers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Philipines? Their economy will probably grind to a halt.

 

[Napa]

I know an Indian dentist in Kuwait who was my sister's classmate in high-school. She is super rich, and is infact, something like a page three celebrity there. She once told me that there are plenty of Indians like her in Kuwait.
I doubt the 8 lakh Indians are going to be the super-rich types. They'll probably all be poor labourers from Bihar and UP.

The question is whether Kuwait can sustain the sudden exit of all these blue-collared labourers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Philipines? Their economy will probably grind to a halt.

As oil prices fall and increasingly there is a move to solar, this will continue happening. On the plus side, the money India spends in importing oil will also keep falling, so it will in the long term benefit India if we can start enough infrastructure projects to give the returning expat labor employment.

 

[Bhaag Viru Bhaag]

No problem. First world country like India will welcome them with open arms. There is no shortage of jobs, better lifestyle, buildings in India. Aane do.

 

[Syed1]

No problem. First world country like India will welcome them with open arms. There is no shortage of jobs, better lifestyle, buildings in India. Aane do.

Sir you don't live in a first world city, as per analyst here Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad are first world like. Please make your way to one of these cities to enjoy a first world standard of living.

 

[Swashbuckler]

Most of the Gulf based Indians are Malayalis, Kerala's remittance dependent economy will be under severe stress because of these moves. Don't think the state government is well prepared, Kerala needs to find a new economic model considering these murmurs.

 

[WhenSultansBowled]

One of the main reasons why people don't like these gulf states is the way they treat their immigrant workforce.

So, when things are going good they exploit these workers and now when people need money to feed their families Kuwait's racist national assembly is expelling these workers.

How's this fair?

I'm totally disgusted by this pathetic decision.

 

[JaDed]

Most of the Gulf based Indians are Malayalis, Kerala's remittance dependent economy will be under severe stress because of these moves. Don't think the state government is well prepared, Kerala needs to find a new economic model considering these murmurs.

Their economic model is based on remittance not only from abroad but also other states. Malayalees are great at doing restaurant business outside their state..most Arabian grill restaurants are owned by them in Bangalore,Chennai .

Kerala's literacy/financial strength should actually help it establish any white collar manufacturing or service sector in a much faster way, somehow they are very slow to establish both these industries.

 

[globalcitizen]

Globalisation has taken a hit in current pandemic situation. Countries want to safeguard their own economy, their own borders, their own people before anything else. This is sad reality and may be even beyond pandemic times.

 

[sweep_shot]

Times are tough now. Economy of Kuwait probably took a hit.

I can see why Kuwait may go for this.

 

[Giannis]

One of the main reasons why people don't like these gulf states is the way they treat their immigrant workforce.

So, when things are going good they exploit these workers and now when people need money to feed their families Kuwait's racist national assembly is expelling these workers.

How's this fair?

I'm totally disgusted by this pathetic decision.

Indians there have been scamming the visa systems all over the gulf, it's the same story in America and Canada.

 

[Gharib Aadmi]

This could be a disaster for Pakistan if all the gulf countries reduce foreign workers. Pakistan's economy is based on remittances.

 

[MenInG]

Pratik Desai, a chief executive with engineering giant Larsen and Turbo has been living in Kuwait for the last 25 years.

But his future looks uncertain after a bill to reduce the number of foreign workers in Kuwait has been partially approved.

The bill has been cleared by the legal and legislative committee of the national assembly of Kuwait, but it needs the government's approval to become a law.

If that happens, Mr Desai and as many as 800,000 Indians could be forced to leave Kuwait. Expats currently form 70% of the Gulf country's population of four million. The bill aims to bring that number down to 30%.

Indians, who form the largest expat community, are likely to be the worst affected.

Experts say the move seems to have been triggered by a slowdown in Kuwait's economy and a rising demand for jobs among locals.

According to local media , Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah said the high number of foreign workers was a "big imbalance", adding that "we have a future challenge to address this imbalance".

Apart from Indians, expats from Pakistan, Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Egypt will also be affected.

The Indian government says it has already initiated discussions with Kuwait about the bill.

"The Indian community is well-regarded in Kuwait and elsewhere in the Gulf region and their contributions are well recognised. We have shared our expectations and Kuwait's decision will take that into account," said Anurag Srivastava, India's foreign ministry spokesperson.

Mr Desai says it's not just about losing a job, but having to relocate to India.

"When you live in one place for so long, you develop an emotional attachment," he says. "It will affect me emotionally more than financially."

Kuwait is also one of the top sources of foreign remittances for India. Indians living there sent nearly $4.6bn in remittances in 2017, according to Pew Research Centre data.

Nearly 300,000 Indians work in the country's domestic sector as drivers, cooks and caretakers. And many say that it will not be easy to fill these vacancies locally.

Kuwait's decision appears to have been sparked by a decline in global crude oil prices, which has severely impacted its oil-dependent economy.

For now, the bill proposal has been sent to another committee to create a comprehensive plan. Kuwait's assembly is also awaiting the government's opinion on the issue, Kuwait Times, an English-language daily newspaper in the Arabian Gulf region, reported.

But will this become a law? Experts are sceptical.

"Right from 1972 when Indians have been going to Kuwait, we have heard this so many times - [that] whenever there is a fall in oil prices, they try to trim the expatriate numbers. Indians, being in large numbers, become the headline." Dr A K Pasha, professor at the Centre for West Asian Studies at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, told the BBC.

Dr Pasha adds that Indians have contributed immensely in building Kuwait's infrastructure and cannot be thrown out.

"Without expatriates, they will not be able to sustain the kind of life the locals have been leading because many of the works which expats do, the locals are unwilling or reluctant to do."

Dr Pasha believes that if foreign workers leave, the expansion of infrastructure, such as housing projects, will slow down given the fall in oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic.

"Non-skilled labour will be affected to a certain extent. But they will still be needed on a long-term basis to sustain and maintain the infrastructure," he says.

Others also believe that drastically cutting the number of expats is not practical.

"It is practically impossible to work with just 200,000 Indians here and send 800,000 home," Kaizar Shakir, a chartered accountant who works with an architectural engineering firm in Kuwait, told the BBC.

"I don't think this bill will be implemented. The Kuwait government is very sensitive about Indians and will not ask them to leave."

But other experts believe that the government is under pressure amid rising unemployment.

There there are Kuwaitis who study abroad, but now want to come back to their country to work.

And that puts skilled jobs at risk too, says Brian Thomas, an Indian expat accountant in Kuwait.

"If [Kuwaiti graduates] can't find work here, then where else?" he says.

"They only want white-collar jobs. You'll mostly never find a Kuwaiti working as a technician. I am working in finance. My job is more at risk," he says.

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