By DPA
Cairo : Foreign workers may be only allowed to live in Gulf countries for a maximum of six years, according to a new proposed law backed by Bahrain’s Labour Minister Majeed al-Alawi.
Al-Alawi will be seeking approval of the proposal at the 28th Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit due in Qatar in December, Gulf News daily newspaper reported Tuesday.
Al-Alawi believes the restrictions are necessary to preserve the identity of the Gulf, which he said was being weakened by foreign workers, the report added.
“I felt that introducing the six-year residency cap will not harm businesses and will protect the identity of the Gulf in the long run,” he said.
“We have a mosaic of cultures with minor Arab and Islamic components. It is not fair.”
The proposal was discussed in detail at the Abu Dhabi Summit in 2005 and reviewed at the Riyadh Summit in 2006.
According to al-Allawi, “the growing unemployment among nationals has become a serious issue in most Gulf countries, although the economies of those countries produce thousands of jobs every year.”
Allawi said that in some Gulf countries it was hard to distinguish if it was an Arab or an Asian state.
The minister also called for major changes in the way the Gulf countries were developing as major projects were not providing jobs to GCC citizens.