By Innovation-sa on October 3, 2019 in News
Saudi Arabia will waive expat fees for employees working in the industrial sector for the next five years starting from October 1, 2019, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
The government’s decision to temporarily cover the cost of expat levy for licensed industrial companies will be a blessing to the private sector, especially businesses accustomed to cheaper foreign labor. Although earlier in February 2019, King Salman approved a $3.1 billion plan to ease levies on companies which had struggled to pay the steadily increasing fees for foreign workers in 2017 and 2018 and to help revive economic growth, the measures weren’t effective enough.
In line with the objectives of the Kingdom to diversify revenue from non-oil sector and implement Saudization, companies have been required to pay extra fees for every foreign worker they employ since 2018. However, the sudden imposition of expat fees along with value-added tax and subsidy cuts caused several private sector companies to struggle to meet the increased operation cost and this has resulted in an exodus of expats.
Arabian Business – 24 September 2019