RIYADH, 9 June — In a move to reduce the occurrence of forgery and to ensure better monitoring of foreign workers by the local immigration department, Saudi Arabia has announced plans to issue new residence permits (iqama) to its seven million expats, currently employed mainly by the private sector.
The new residence permits will be issued in phases starting with Central Province and will be gradually extended across the Kingdom.
“The new plastic-card-style residence permits for foreigners, smaller in size and resembling the identity cards carried by Saudis, will replace the traditional Iqama within a few months,” according to Lt. Col. Fahd A. A. Al-Dakkan, public relations manager of the immigration department at the Ministry of Interior.
The initial plan, he said, was to issue the new iqamas from early this year. However, it was not possible because of technical hitches.
The move to issue new residence permits comes at a time when the Kingdom plans to issue new machine-readable passports for its 17 million citizens. The plan, which calls for issuing separate passports for all members of Saudi families rather than just their heads, is currently underway.
According to official estimates, there are seven million expats working in Saudi Arabia, which has a population of more than 24 million.
Referring to the format of the new residence permits, Lt. Col. Al-Dakkan said that the new document will be fully computer-generated, thus minimizing the chances of imitation and fraud.
The new method of production for Iqamas will discourage groups of foreigners who have been forging them for distribution among illegal workers.
The new residence permits will contain all necessary information required by the law enforcement agencies of the Kingdom. However, officials said that this decision to issue new machine-readable Iqama is unrelated to the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
