Kuwait's new expat bill has Indians worried

A total of 8 lakh Indians may be forced to leave Kuwait as its National Assembly committee has approved a draft expat quota bill seeking to reduce the number of foreign workers in the Gulf country.

The expat quota Bill has been cleared by the legal and legislative committee of the national assembly of Kuwait, but it needs the government's approval to become a law. Expats currently form 70% of the Gulf country's population of four million. The bill aims to bring that number down to 30%.

Indians, who form the largest expat community, are likely to be the worst affected. Kuwait is also one of the top sources of foreign remittances for India. Indians living there sent nearly $4.6bn in remittances in 2017, according to Pew Research Centre data.

The expat quota bill will now be referred to the concerned committee for consideration. It states that the Indian expatriate community should not exceed 15 per cent of the national population, which means around 800,000 of them might be required to leave Kuwait, the Arab News reported.

For now, the bill proposal has been sent to another committee to create a comprehensive plan. Kuwait's assembly is also awaiting the government's opinion on the issue, Kuwait Times, an English-language daily newspaper in the Arabian Gulf region, reported.

Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah said the high number of foreign workers was a "big imbalance", adding that "we have a future challenge to address this imbalance".

The Indian government says it has already initiated discussions with Kuwait about the bill.
"The Indian community is well-regarded in Kuwait and elsewhere in the Gulf region and their contributions are well recognised. We have shared our expectations and Kuwait's decision will take that into account," said Anurag Srivastava, India's foreign ministry spokesperson.