KUWAIT CITY, 13 October 2004 — Gulf Arab labor ministers approved yesterday measures aimed at increasing the number of their nationals in the active work force in a bid to cut almost total dependence on foreign manpower. In a one-day meeting here, they adopted a study calling for a hike in the minimum wage and offering a package of incentives for nationals in the private sector, and to make employment of foreigners more expensive for local businesses.
The measures were adopted by the ministers of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which make up the Gulf Cooperation Council, and Yemen. According to semi-official estimates, the GCC states, which have a combined population of around 33 million people, employ well over 11 million expatriate workers, the majority of them non-Arab foreigners.
Saudi Arabia, the largest GCC partner, alone has between six and seven million foreign workers out of a population of 24 million. Kuwaiti Social Affairs and Labor Minister Faisal Al-Hajji called in his opening speech to “control the demographic structure in order to preserve the Gulf’s social and political identity.”
Bahraini Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Majeed Al-Alawi warned on arrival that “non-Arab foreign workers constitute a strategic threat to the region’s future.” The ministers called in their measures on member states to improve working conditions and incentives for nationals to seek employment in the private sector and to encourage ways to replace expatriates.
