RIYADH, 22 April — Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Ali Al-Namlah said around seven million foreign workers in the Kingdom are sending home SR70 billion ($18.6 billion) a year. He was confirming figures released by a ministry official last week.
“There are seven million foreign workers in the Kingdom. Their total remittances every year reach SR70 billion. This sum will drop once more nationals enter the market,” the minister told Okaz newspaper.
The government has launched a campaign to reduce the number of expatriates in the country by hiking fees on their recruitment and resident permits and offering incentives for nationals to work in the private sector.
Part of the fees will go into a special Manpower Development Fund that has been set up to help nationalize jobs in the Kingdom, whose population of Saudi nationals stands at around 16 million.
Speaking about the heavy drain of capital out of the country, Ahmad Al-Mansour, undersecretary at the ministry, urged government and private sectors to prevent this by increasing the level of Saudization.
