The National Strategy for Eradicating Poverty has at last been finalized. Ordered by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah three years ago, the strategy, through a series of measures and programs, aims at fighting poverty. Economists say addressing the problem of poverty is closely related to ending unemployment, a fundamental issue facing the Kingdom.

To address unemployment you have to achieve two basic things: First maintain an economic growth rate that is always higher than the population growth rate and, second, confine the work done by expatriate workers to a very limited number of professions.

The United States became the richest country in the world, says Jeffrey D. Sach, author of “The End of Poverty,” because it succeeded in maintaining an economic growth rate of 1.7 percent from 1920 until 1998 at a time when there was not enough population; this led it to open its doors for migrants.

Saudi Arabia, which continues to rely on one major source of income, oil, experienced negative economic growth rate from 1982 until 2003 while its population increased at the rate of 2.5 percent per year during the same period.

Based on these statistics and to solve the problem of poverty, we need to achieve a growth rate of at least seven percent over the next 10 years while maintaining a population growth of less then two percent. This of course would require diversifying the income sources as did Dubai which achieved economic growth rate of nine percent this year.

The second obstacle to employing Saudis is the cheap foreign labor; this should be confined to a limited number of professions normally shunned by Saudis, for example domestic service. No foreigner should be employed in any job that could be taken over by a Saudi. We shouldn’t be ashamed of doing this.

France, a country applying the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, does not grant work permit to any foreigner to do the kind of work that a French citizen can do. If we moved to apply the same rule, there would be no cheap foreign labor in the country that makes local businesses employ them instead of employing Saudis. By achieving these two goals, we would be in a position to eradicate poverty once and for all.