X
X
Where did you hear about us?
The monthly magazine providing news analysis and professional research for the discerning private investor/landlord

30,000 expats leave Kuwait in first four days of May

The number of expatriate residents in Kuwait fell by approximately 30,000 in the first four days of May, according to local media reports. Citing anonymous ‘official sources’, the Kuwait Times reported that the figure comes from Ministry of Interior figures provided to the Public Authority of Civil Information that show expats who have cancelled their residency visas or were issued with new ones.

Further, the sources explained that as of last week, the total number of Kuwaiti citizens in the country was 1,412,264 (29.7% of the population) compared to 3,333,027 expatriates (70.3%). The total number of residents in the country was calculated at 4,745,291.

In November 2018, another Kuwait newspaper, Al-Qabas, reported that the Kuwaiti government has outlined plans to limit the percentage of expats within the population to 50% over the next seven years, which would reduce the overall number of expats by at least 1.5m people, as the country aims to achieve a more national demographic balance.

The Kuwaiti national population is expected to increase to 1.7m within seven years, an increase of 300,000, so the move would create at least 200,000 empty homes if completed (average family size of 5.7 in Kuwait), which would obviously decimate property prices as it would equate to around 25% of all homes. This has sent shock waves throughout the Middle East and highlighted the dangers of investing large sums of money in non-democratic countries where the “goal posts” can be moved at any given time.

If you want to read more news subscribe

subscribe