70% locals, 30% expats is ideal mix: Kuwait PM

Kuwait City - Out of 4.8 million inhabitants, some 3.3 million are foreign nationals.

Kuwait wants to slash the migrant proportion of its population from 70 per cent to 30 per cent, state media said, with the prime minister vowing to "resolve the demographic imbalance".
Kuwait has a large foreign population mostly made up of Middle Eastern and Asian workers. Out of 4.8 million inhabitants, some 3.3 million are foreign nationals, said Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al Khaled Al Hamad Al Sabah.
"The ideal demographic situation would be that Kuwaitis make up 70 per cent of the population and non-Kuwaitis 30 per cent," he told a gathering of local newspaper editors.
"So we face a big challenge in the future to rectify this demographic imbalance."
Kuwait's state budgets have been slammed by tumbling oil prices sparked by the novel coronavirus pandemic, pushing it to seek ways to provide more jobs to its own citizens.

• Kuwait