70% Kuwaitis and 30% expats ideal Kuwait population

KUWAIT: The State of Kuwait is facing a “big challenge” to address discrepancy in the structure of the population, His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah said Wednesday.

Kuwait has a population of some 4.8 million people, of them 1.45 million Kuwaitis and around 3.34 million non-Kuwaitis, or 30 to 70 percent ratio, he said.

“The ideal population structure is to have Kuwaitis being 70 percent and non-Kuwaitis 30 percent, so we have a big challenge in the future which is to address the discrepancy in population,” His Highness the Prime Minister underscored in a meeting with editors in chief of local newspapers.

He said there were 750,000 foreign domestic helpers, which equal half of the Kuwaiti population.

“The population structure needs time to be solved, and it should be divided into phases until reaching a final adjustment to the population in future,” he said.

“We rely on our sons and daughters to work in all professions,” he added and cited the forefathers who contributed to the building of Kuwait by working in all jobs.

The government, he said, was keen on cooperating with the parliament to reach fruitful results.

Asked about resumption of air travel, His Highness the Prime Minister competent authorities were paving the ground for the resumption of risk-free travel. “The right time will come to open this domain and everybody will be able to travel freely.” (KUNA)