Manama: Around 40,000 expats, who are stranded in their home countries due to the coronavirus pandemic, failed to renew their Kuwait residency permits and they will not be allowed to return without a valid visa, Kuwait’s Al Rai newspaper reported.
Most are stuck abroad due to the restrictive measures imposed to curb the spread of coronavirus pandemic. They lost the validity of their residence permit as they were unable to renew it within the time period allotted to them, the report added.
They will be unable to return to the country unless they have new visas, the daily reported quoting a top official.
Earlier, the Interior Minister Anas Al Saleh ordered to facilitate measures for renewing residency permits and expired passports of around 68,000 expatriates, mostly Egyptians and Indians, according to Kuwait’s Residency Affairs Director, Hamad Rashed Al-Tawala.
The government has extended the validity of all visas for those currently in the Gulf state to 31 August, with as many as four million people benefiting from the decision.
He said that the crisis has been addressed by allowing renewal of residency permits and transfer on condition that the embassy of the respective country stamps in approval renewal and the expat gets an official written approval from the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry. .
This approach reflects sympathy with these expats who have made no mistake. Their problem was the result of the coronavirus pandemic, he added.
In an interview with Al-Rai, Al-Tawala also said that about 7,000 migrant workers, mostly from India and Egypt, scrapped their residency permits and left Kuwait during the pandemic.
More than 26,000 illegals took advantage of the recent amnesty and left Kuwait, according to Brig. Al Tawala.
He added that around 1,35,000 illegal expats are still in Kuwait after the amnesty.
In April, the Kuwaiti government announced the amnesty plan for illegal foreign workers to encourage them to depart. The amnesty offered the illegals exemption from punishment and fines, and free home return flights.
There have been increasing calls in Kuwait to redress the demographic imbalance, prompting several government bodies to disclose plans to minimise numbers of their expatriate employees.
Earlier in July, Kuwait Parliament’s legal and legislative committee approved the draft quota bill. And few more similar bills were in the pipeline.
The draft law has been referred to the concerned committee to generate a comprehensive plan and to study the legal impacts. After this, the draft bill will be urgently referred to the parliament as part of efforts to handle the demographic imbalance, he said.
Kuwait's overall population currently stands at 42.71 lakh. Over 70 per cent or 33.35 lakh of the total population are expats, which means Kuwaiti nationals constitute just 30 percent of the total population.
According to reports, 92,000 expats left Kuwait between April and June, including illegal migrants.
Meanwhile. Al Tawala said that the government has approved a plan to increase fees on residency permits and visas for business, tourism and family visits. The new fees will come into effect before the end of this year, according to the official.
Kuwaiti is considered among the cheapest countries in the world. The new residency fees will be approximate to those in the other Gulf Cooperation Council countries, he added.
