Friday December 05, 2025 / 14 , Jumada al-akhirah , 1447
Header Logo
Leading The Way
search-icon
Footer Header
search-icon
SG
Saudi Arabia
Opinion
Discover Saudi
World
Sports
Business
Life
Advertisements
search-logo
  • Home
  • Opinion
  • OP-ED
Opinion
781 - 790 from 1018 . In "Opinion / OP-ED"
What revenue will expat fees actually generate?
Okaz recently published a financial analysis, prepared by Muhammad Al-Sobhi from Jeddah. The report said that the program of fees on expats and their dependents will bring in SR 133 billion in revenue in three years. This is part of the new programs announced by Saudi Arabia to diversify sources of income and increase job opportunities for Saudi workers.According to the program, a monthly fee of SR100 is being levied on each expat dependent from July 2017 and this is projected to generate SR1 billion for the government by the end of this year. At the beginning of 2018, fees will be applied to expatriate workers based on their number in private sector firms. If the total number of expatriates in a firm is less than that of the Saudi workforce, then the employer has to pay SR300 per month to...
December 27, 2017

What revenue will expat fees actually generate?

The dependents fee may have a negative economic impact
A study by some Saudi economists indicates that the expat dependents fee is a vital means to solve the issue of unemployment in the country.As part of the government’s Fiscal Balance Program, a resident’s dependent is to pay SR1,200 for one year as of July 1, 2017. The monthly fee for each dependent is SR100 this year. It will increase by SR100 per month every year reaching SR400 per month per dependent by 2020. This is expected to generate SR1 billion in revenue by the end of the year and SR65 billion by 2020 based on the current number of expat dependents. The finance ministry projects a government budget balance in 2020.With foreign workers having sent their families home on final exit, that target may be elusive. The byproduct of the decision to impose fees on expat dependents will...
December 27, 2017

The dependents fee may have a negative economic impact

‘Interesting times’ in the Middle East!
The Chinese have an amusing saying: “May you live in interesting times.” The catch is that this is not a good wish, but a curse! The person saying it is wishing that life will overwhelm you with surprises, changes and events. The result is a lot of unpredictable disturbances that will not allow you to live in peace. Welcome to the Middle East!There were less eventful times, only seven years ago. It wasn’t paradise then. It wasn’t all peaceful and quiet. But it did seem much more predictable than today, and events gave us time to breath, absorb and meditate.It all started with the so-called “Arab Spring.” A man burned himself to death in a street in a Tunisian town because a policewoman confiscated his vegetable cart and slapped his face when he protested - hardly an...
December 25, 2017

‘Interesting times’ in the Middle East!

The dilemma of Indian Muslims
A senior friend of mine, who spends much of his time online, passionately airing his strongly held views on issues and challenges facing India in general and its Muslims in particular, is surprisingly sprightly and sharp for his 80 plus years.Well-read and widely travelled, Shervani sahib writes well and with effortless ease, giving people like yours truly a huge complex. He is invariably swift in responding to my rants, within minutes of sharing them on some online groups. His missives raise uncomfortable questions demanding swift answers, especially on solutions to our continuing dispossession.Responding to my latest piece on the US move on Jerusalem, Shervani sahib wrote: “Who are the Americans and British to give away Palestine and Jerusalem,” asks Aijaz rightly. But this question...
December 25, 2017

The dilemma of Indian Muslims

Voters warm to secret services
In the early hours of Tuesday in the northern UK cities of Sheffield and Chesterfield, armed police blew open doors of homes and a Muslim community center, arresting four men aged between 22 and 41. Scanty information given to the news media spoke of a planned “Christmas bomb attack,” now presumably averted. The police, it emerged, were acting on information given by the secret services, probably the domestic service, MI5.Britain has suffered four Islamist militant attacks this year, with 35 people killed, 22 of these mainly young people at a concert in Manchester. There has been one apparent “revenge” attack, when a man drove into a crowd of worshippers outside of a London mosque, killing one. Nine allegedly planned attacks have been averted by the secret services - which, with...
December 24, 2017

Voters warm to secret services

A tribute to the Lebanese national resistance!
If you think that these words are directed to the terrorist faction organization Hezbollah in Lebanon, do not read the rest of the article. Because these words are directed to national and honorable opinions and exceptional stances defending freedom by those who have paid the price with their health, nerves, dignity and sometimes life, to keep the voice of free opinion and truth heard.There is a clear conflict in Lebanon today, but it has been a cumulative struggle in the hands of tyrannical regimes including the Syrian regime, which once occupied Lebanon and practiced terrorism by acting through Hezbollah. There is a systematic campaign today against free, independent, bold and different opinions. In the campaign to suppress opinion, different methods are used to attack well-known people...
December 24, 2017

A tribute to the Lebanese national resistance!

Language of hate against expats
WE have all followed the story of the “Saudi Kidnapped Child” who was found in the care of an expat family residing illegally in Riyadh. The child was discovered when police raided a neighborhood in Riyadh, as part of the security campaign against illegal residents. The police were quick to recognize that the little girl, who had lived with the expats for three years, was not part of that family. These were the facts, but people are impulsive and are quick to assume and presume without ascertaining the facts.And that’s precisely what happened when the first general assumption was that the child had been kidnapped, despite the fact that police did not issue any statement regarding the child at that time. The story of the “Saudi Kidnaped Child” soon went viral on social media and...
December 24, 2017

Language of hate against expats

Don’t be taken in by the surge in oil prices
In primary school, we used to memorize in our geography lessons the locations of oil wells, refineries and ports of exports. We used to read that the Kingdom was very keen on diversifying its revenues by encouraging light industries and searching for other resources. It is unfortunate that this strategic intention lost its way between the strategies of the consecutive five-year economic plans. The oil sector has remained the main source of the national budget (90-95 percent) since the discovery of oil in 1932. This meant that the economic performance of the Kingdom for many decades was tied to the mercy of oil price volatility, up and down, until Vision 2030 rightly emerged early this year to put our economy on the right track by mitigating gradually its dependence on the oil sector.But...
December 23, 2017

Don’t be taken in by the surge in oil prices

We must put an end to fake Saudization
The Kingdom has Saudized many jobs to reduce unemployment, which has hit 12.8 percent, amounting to 800,000 Saudis. The number of expatriate workers has reached 11 million, according to the General Statistics Authority 2016 report. Having this large number of expatriate workers while we have such a high unemployment rate is a strange thing. The Ministry of Labor launched the Nitaqat program requiring companies to meet a certain Saudization percentage in terms of their workforce. Companies that meet the required percentage get various benefits.Over time, companies began circumventing the regulations surrounding the Nitaqat program. Many companies hired Saudis and paid them small salaries for what in effect were fake jobs. These Saudis did not carry out any tasks and did not even report to...
December 22, 2017

We must put an end to fake Saudization

Beirut in the eye of the storm
The resignation of Saad Al-Hariri less than a year after being elected prime minister of Lebanon came as no surprise to many observers of the political scene. There are many overlapping domestic, regional and international factors that can be reflected in the following points.Firstly, fragile government and grave crisis:State institutions in Lebanon were almost paralyzed by the failure of the two dominant Lebanese parties, March 8 Alliance and March 14 Alliance, to agree on the election of a president. In an attempt to put an end to the two-year-long presidential vacuum, spare Lebanon from regional crises and resume political life, Hariri and his political team came to accept Hezbollah’s first candidate, Michel Aoun. Hence, a fragile deal was agreed, whereby the former would be named...
December 20, 2017

Beirut in the eye of the storm

< Previous Next >
footer logo
COPYRIGHT © 2025 WWW.SAUDIGAZETTE.COM.SA - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Powered by NewsPress
NEWS CATEGORY
saudi arabia world opinion business sports esports life
COMPANY
advertisements about us Epaper contact us Archive privacy policy