Foreign investors to be classified as Saudis in Saudization rates

Blending foreign investors in:Foreign investors are set to be classified as Saudis under the government’s Saudization program, Okaz reported. The scheme was approved by the Human Resources and Social Development Ministry’s Qiwa platform, which aims to facilitate setting up and operating businesses here.

SMART POLICY- When implemented, foreign business owners would be labeled as Saudis when calculating Saudization rates in firms. This would allow for relaxed Saudization requirements in leadership roles held by non-Saudis. Saudization has been gaining momentum lately across various sectors with targets for engineering and transport-related jobs recently introduced. The government hopes its Saudization quotas applied through several industries would boost local employment to 70% by 2030.

Other exceptions: The platform also classified children of Saudi women married to non-Saudis under the Saudization program. Non-Saudi mothers of citizens and non-Saudi widows whose husbands were Saudi will also be counted, as well Gulf nationals and athletes or players.

Watch this space: Some nationalities, including Palestinians holding Egyptian passports and members of the indigenous Baloch community and Southeast Asian ethnic group Bamar, will be calculated at a lower proportion when measuring Saudization rates.

In perspective: Hiring four Palestinians would be equal to one Saudi provided that the Palestians do not account for over 50% of the total workforce, according to Okaz. A similar classification would be applied on workers from Bamar across the Kingdom except for Makkah and Madinah.

It’s part of a steady drive to attract skilled foreign residents to the Kingdom after officials unveiled earlier this year its new special talent residency program for priority sectors including healthcare, digital technologies, financial services, advanced manufacturing, energy, mining, logistics, tourism infrastructure and others. A hunt for talent has pushed the government to recently reconsider monthly fees applied since 2017 for the dependents of expats.