By Innovation-sa on February 26, 2018 in News
About 12 million foreigners arrived in Saudi Arabia in 2017 for work, visit, pilgrimage, and business said Abdulrahman Al-Yousef, Deputy Foreign Minister for Consular Affairs and Director General of Visa Administration.
Of the 12 million visas issued by the Saudi government, 1.5 million were tourist visas and 50,000 were business visas. Business visas are valid for two years and permit multiple visits, he added.
Meanwhile, the General Authority for Statistics (GaStat) analysis of the third quarter of 2017 indicated that 94,390 foreign employees opted to leave the Kingdom in Q3 of 2017, largely due to Saudization in several job sectors and an exceptional increase in living cost. The number of expats working in the Kingdom’s public and private sector was around 10.79 million in Q2 which reduced to 10.6 million in Q3.
At the same time, the number of visas issued during the third quarter of 2017 totaled 509,180 with 22.3 percent visas issued in the public sector and 39.9 percent in the private sector. Around 37.8 percent visas were issued to recruit domestic employees, the report added.
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