RIYADH, 1 February 2007 — A regional committee to coordinate recruitment of foreign manpower in the Gulf region was formed in Riyadh on Tuesday, Saad Al-Baddah, chairman of Saudi National Recruitment Committee (SANARCOM), said.
The first meeting discussed various issues faced by the recruitment companies in the Gulf from manpower exporting countries, he said.
“The new committee will prepare a working agenda based on the experiences from the six Gulf (Cooperation Council member) countries,” he said.
He indicated that the new committee would form a common strategy to meet the changing policies in manpower supply from these countries.
“Initially, we want to ensure that the recruitment policies of the member countries are in accordance with their respective local regulations,” he pointed out, saying that “we will try to unify several of our activities in the process to get quality manpower to ensure value for the money spent on their labor.”
Around 12 million foreign workers are working in the Gulf, which include seven million from the Kingdom, he said, adding that their average salary is $320 a month. Regarding recruitment procedures in the Kingdom, Baddah said that it had started importing manpower from Vietnam.
“We are waiting to recruit more people from Nepal when the new parliament settles down in Katmandu,” he said, noting that the Kingdom is now looking for more human resources from African countries, such as Kenya and Ethiopia. The other two members of the committee include Ali Al-Shola, chairman of the Bahraini National Recruitment Committee and Abdulaziz Al-Ali, chairman of the Kuwait Association for National Recruitment.
