Expat levy to add SR60bn economic burden on Saudis

January 17, 2013

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Jeddah, Jan 17: Calls are mounting for the government to repeal the proposed levy for businesses not meeting Saudization requirements. Analysts have said that implementing the measure will impose an additional economic burden of some SR60 billion annually on Saudi families across the country.

Employers are now forced to pay SR2,400 a year for each foreign worker that pushes the work force at a particular company over the 50 percent target mandated by Saudization laws.

Talal Samarkandi, head of the Engineering Firm Committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said his panel would come out with a detailed study that would convince authorities of the need to abolish the levy.

The move comes after Crown Prince Salman, deputy premier and minister of defense, instructed the Council of Saudi Chambers to submit a report on the levy’s impact on both individuals and the national economy.

Many companies have delayed renewing their foreign employees’ iqamas because of the newly imposed fees. Employers now must pay annually SR 2,600 in labor fees for each foreigner over the 50 percent mandate instead of SR100 for all workers’ renewed iqamas, which was the case previously.

Samarkandi said the government would be able to mobilize SR19 billion annually from the new fees. “As a result of the additional expenditures, traders and businesses will increase the prices of their goods and services by three to five times and consumers will be the main victims.”

Many companies, especially contractors and labor suppliers have already increased their charges. Samarkandi estimated the increase in prices of goods after the imposition of the levy at 10 to 20 percent.

There are about 10 million expatriate workers in the Kingdom including those who have overstayed their visas and other undocumented workers. About 3 million expatriates work as house servants while 7 million work in the service and industrial sector.

The new levy would increase the expenditure of businesses by SR20 billion annually. “To meet this expenditure, traders will increase prices of goods and services by three times and the cost will reach SR60 billion,” Samarkandi explained.

“If we distribute this amount among 2.4 Saudi families with seven members in each family, the cost per family comes to SR10,000 every year or SR1,800 per month,” he pointed out.

“This has become a new cost of living increase for Saudis, and the Ministry of Labor has not taken this into consideration when imposing the levy on private companies,” he pointed out.

He said the ministry was just thinking of how to manage the fund required for paying unemployment allowance without checking its negative implications.

Muhiyuddin Al-Hekami, assistant secretary-general of JCCI, said the organization would calculate the damage caused by the levy on various sectors. “It is our duty to protect the interests of businesses in the city.”

Al-Hekami said the chamber had received complaints against the levy from traders, businessmen and industrialists. “We’ll present a detailed report to higher authorities to take appropriate action,” he said.

Nasser Al-Zahem, head of the Health Services Committee, said the Labor Ministry has to clarify whether the new fees are an expat tax. The health sector, which does not receive an adequate number of qualified Saudis, has been suffering big losses as a result of the new decisions, he pointed out. The levy, he said, would force many small companies to leave the market. “They should consider that the private sector is part and parcel of the state,” he added.

Crown Prince Salman called for studying the issue following a meeting with a business delegation led by Abdullah Al-Mubti, president of the Council of Saudi Chambers.

During that meeting, the CSC delegation explained the negative aspects of the Labor Ministry's decision. Prince Salman emphasized the need to protect national interests. The delegation vowed to employ more Saudis in private companies.

In a previous statement, Labor Minister Adel Fakeih said there was no plan to cancel the levy, which was imposed to bridge the gap between the cost of employing expatriates and Saudis, raising the cost of foreign labor. “This is not a ministry decision, it’s a Cabinet decision,” the minister said.

Saleh Hefni, CEO of Halwani Bros Company, said the levy would contribute to increasing inflation rather than nationalizing jobs. “This tax proposal, I think, will not stop the private sector’s dependence on expatriate workers, rather they will try to cover the cost of expatriate workers by increasing the prices of the products they produce and sell in the market,” he added.

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News Network
November 12,2024

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The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement says its fighters have killed at least 20 Israeli soldiers in northern parts of the besieged Gaza Strip in just two days, in retaliation for the occupying regime’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory.

In a statement on Monday evening, Hamas said that fighters of its military wing, al-Qassam Brigades, “killed at least five occupation soldiers” in northern parts of the coastal territory earlier in the day.

It added that Hamas fighters also killed 15 Israeli soldiers in the war-ravaged region on Sunday.

The resistance movement’s “qualitative operation … confirms once again the failure of the criminal Zionist entity to suppress and eradicate the Palestinian resistance, which continues to direct qualitative strikes against its terrorist soldiers,” Hamas further said on its Telegram channel.

Palestinians have increased their resistance operations in the face of intensified Israeli aggression in northern Gaza that has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 over the past weeks.

“Our valiant resistance is waging a war of attrition with the criminal enemy, inflicting daily losses on its soldiers and vehicles, and all of [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s bets and dreams of achieving any of his goals are failing,” the Gaza-based resistance movement added.

Hamas also vowed that Israel’s ongoing crimes and aggression against Gaza would be met with increased resistance and painful strikes, which will continue until the aggression against Palestinians ends and the regime fully withdraws from the blockaded territory.

As the war in Gaza enters its 14th month, the Health Ministry reports that Israeli attacks have killed at least 43,603 Palestinians and wounded 102,929 others.

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News Network
November 13,2024

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Beirut: The Israeli army on Tuesday continued to launch attacks against civilians in Lebanon, targeting them in several areas without prior evacuation warnings.

However, 13 airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the space of only three hours were preceded by evacuation warnings.

The attacks caused no injuries but resulted in widespread destruction of residential buildings and commercial, medical and educational centers.

The airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Bekaa region, reaching Akkar in Lebanon’s far north, erased any hope of a near-term ceasefire settlement.

The strikes were accompanied by an announcement on Israel’s Channel 14 that “the Israeli army has expanded its operations in southern Lebanon to areas it had not reached since the beginning of the ground operation.”

About 50 days have passed since Israel intensified its hostile operations in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah. The death toll from these confrontations and attacks has passed 3,200, with more than 14,000 wounded.

For the first time, an airstrike targeted a mountainous area between Baalchmay and Aabadiyeh on the road leading to Aley, destroying a building housing displaced people.

The mayor of Baalchmay, Adham Al-Danaf, confirmed that “the airstrike targeted a residential building in the Dhour Aabadiyeh area.”

The initial toll from the Ministry of Health showed “five people killed and two injured.”

The raids that targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs for the first time in the morning, unlike nightly raids before, caused huge destruction. Those who evacuated their homes after Israeli warnings, used their phones to record the collapse of empty buildings in Sfeir, Haret Hreik, Bir Al-Abed, Mrayjeh, Laylaki and Hadath.

Israeli warplanes also targeted Tyre, where a strike on a building killed three people and injured many others, while a raid on Tefahta killed a man identified as Kifah Khalil and his family.

Attacks were widespread, with Yater and Zebqine subject to artillery shelling, a civilian being killed in Hermel, and further attacks on Bouday and an area between the towns of Srifa and Arsoun.

A raid on the town of Siddiqin killed two people and injured several others, while an attack on the Mechref farm led to one fatality and multiple injuries.

The search for those missing after an Israeli raid on the town of Ain Yaacoub in Akkar, in the northernmost part of Lebanon, continued until dawn.

During the operation, 14 bodies were retrieved, identified as those of residents displaced from the town of Arabsalim in the Iqlim Al-Tuffah area of the south, along with members of a Syrian family, a mother and three of her children. Additionally, there were 10 people in critical condition.

The targeted residence belongs to a Lebanese citizen, Hussein Hashim, who is reported to be a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

An airstrike on the town of Saksakiyeh in the Sidon region on Monday night resulted in yet another tragedy.

It appeared that the intended target was the Shoumer family, who just days before lost Hussein Amin Shoumer and his two sisters in a drone strike near Al-Awali River.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued additional evacuation warnings for towns in the southern region along the Litani River, which, according to estimates from the mayors, are currently 90 percent uninhabited.

In the meantime, Hezbollah announced its continued efforts to “combat the intrusions of Israeli forces and to strike military installations and towns in the north.”

Hezbollah said in a statement that it confronted “an Israeli Hermes 450 drone in the airspace of Nabatieh and forced it to leave Lebanese airspace.”

The party also announced that it targeted “Kfar Blum settlement with a rocket salvo.”

On the Israeli side, air raid sirens sounded in areas of Upper and Western Galilee and in the town of Kiryat Shmona and its surroundings.

The Israeli army confirmed that “a drone exploded in Nesher, east of Haifa, without activating the air raid sirens,” and that “a drone launched from Lebanon crashed into a school in Gesher HaZiv, north of Nahariya.”

Israel’s Channel 13 reported the Israeli military’s assessment regarding Hezbollah’s military strength, claiming that the group currently possesses approximately 100 precision missiles, thousands of artillery shells, and hundreds of rockets. Additionally, it was highlighted that “there are around 200 Lebanese towns that remain unvisited.”

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News Network
November 4,2024

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Hundreds of Israeli settlers conducted a brutal attack in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

The settlers set fire to numerous homes and vehicles of Palestinians and then moved to the main road connecting Ramallah to other cities, targeting Palestinian cars passing by.

They stormed the city of al-Bireh, near Ramallah, and burned Palestinian property and vehicles.

A woman sustained injuries after the settlers hurled stones at her vehicle, according to Palestinian news outlets.

Tension has been running high across the West Bank because of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, which has killed at least 43,341 people, mostly women and children, since last year’s October.

The Monday settler attack came as the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas warned of Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank and drive Palestinians out.

“We warn of the grave danger posed by the plans led by the extremist occupation regime and illegal settler groups to displace the residents of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank,” Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi said.

Israel's far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the full annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip last week.

Smotrich asserted that Israel should unequivocally declare there would be no Palestinian state.

He repeated his proposal of expanding Israeli settlements within the West Bank and other occupied territories.

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