Riyadh: A Saudi official has suggested that foreign workers who have been living in Gulf countries for more than 25 years should be granted free iqamas (work/residence permits) or permanent resident status outside the sponsorship system.
In an interview published in the Arab News newspaper, Abdullah Sadiq Dahlan, Saudi Arabia's representative to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), said the kingdom should reform the citizenship system to open the way for long-term legal residents to acquire naturalisation.
This, he said, was necessary since the expatriates were "deeply rooted in our society" and their return back to the countries has become a problem for them.
The newspaper quoted Dahlan as saying that the new regulations to obtain Saudi nationality, which were issued about two years ago, were pioneering and in favour of foreign workers.
He also said that more has to be done for long-term foreign workers here.
Dahlan suggested that Saudi Arabia should do more to retain and benefit from the skills that workers had acquired during their stay in the country.
Dahlan likewise mentioned that there were only around 20,000 to 30,000 labour disputes reported annually in Saudi Arabia.
This, he said, was small when one takes into account that there are about six million foreign workers in the country. He said both the government and the private sector were keen to adopt international labour laws.
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