#Kuwait Needs to Slash Expatriate Population to 30%, Premier Says - Bloomberg

Kuwait Needs to Slash Expatriate Population to 30%, Premier Says - Bloomberg:

Kuwait should reduce its expatriate population to 30% of the total from the current 70%, Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Sabah said, as the coronavirus pandemic and a slump in oil prices expose vulnerabilities in economic models across the Gulf.

Foreigners account for nearly 3.4 million of Kuwait’s 4.8 million people, and that’s a “big imbalance, and we have a future challenge to redress this imbalance,” Sheikh Sabah told the top editors of local newspapers.

Despite running one of the Gulf’s smallest crisis stimulus packages, top lender National Bank of Kuwait SAK predicts the country’s shortfall will reach 40% of gross domestic product in the fiscal year that started April 1, the most since the 1991 Gulf War and its aftermath. Most Gulf states are expected to run budget shortfalls of 15%-25% of economic output, leading to a build-up of debt, dwindling reserves, and tough choices.