JEDDAH, 16 March 2004 — Saudi Arabia is expected to open new channels of investment for expatriates in order to make use of their annual foreign remittances which are estimated at SR56 billion ($15 billion), a newspaper reported yesterday.
“Higher authorities in the Kingdom are now conducting a serious study on how to make use of the huge annual remittances of expatriate workers by opening new channels of investment for them,” Al-Madinah Arabic daily said.
The plan includes opening new investment channels for expatriates and removing all barriers to their investments in the Kingdom, the paper said.
The authorities came up with the new plan after reports of the large amounts that expatriates had been sending abroad. A recent report by the Ministry of Economy and Planning estimated the expatriates’ remittances during the past 10 years at SR585.4 billion.
The amount is equal to the funds required by the Kingdom for infrastructure projects until 2020, the ministry said. Remittances by the country’s seven million expatriates have increased by two percent annually despite the Saudization drive.
The move also comes after economists warned the Saudi authorities that the drain on the country’s hard currency through expatriates’ foreign remittances would weaken the economy and called for quick remedial action.
The money sent abroad by expatriates from 1993 to 2002 was almost double the amount sent from 1983 to 1993 (SR291 billion), the ministry said. In 1993 alone, remittances of expatriates amounted to SR67.8 billion but declined to SR57.7 billion in 2000, to rise again to SR59.45 billion in 2002.
“Foreigners represent two-thirds of the total work force in the country,” the ministry said, adding that the government was trying hard to find jobs for unemployed Saudi youth.
