Kuwait approves expats quota bill, 8 lakh Indians asked to leave

Kuwait City: Kuwait National Assembly’s legal and legislative committee has approved draft law proposing quota for expatriates as constitutional, Kuwait Times daily reported.

The bill will now be forwarded to the concerned committee for consideration. The bill states that the Indian expatriate community should not exceed 15 percent of the national population. With over 9 lakh Indians residing in nation, around 8 lakh of them might be required to leave Kuwait.

MPs have already called to replace all expat jobs in the government within one year.

In May, it was announced that Kuwait’s Municipality will soon dismiss all expat employees and replace them with Kuwaitis.

In June, Kuwait said that it will ban the employment of expatriates in state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) and its subsidiaries for the year 2020-21.

The decision also calls for freezing employment applications from expats, cancelling appointments under process and not renewing the contracts of existing employees.

Last year, MP Safa Al Hashem also urged Kuwait to expel close to two million expatriates from the country over the next five years to rectify its ‘demographic imbalance’.

She said that it was essential to have Kuwaitis number more than 50 per cent of the country’s population.