Saudi Gazette report JEDDAH – The rent prices of residential units are expected to drop 20 to 30 percent, especially in areas where limited-income people live, due to the fact that many expatriate workers, who have been engaged in cover-up businesses, will leave the Kingdom as they cannot rectify their status, real estate experts say. Abdullah Al-Ahmari, who is the chairman of the real estate appraisal committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), told Al-Watan daily that a large number of expatriates, who run small businesses in the name of Saudis, which is against the law, face great difficulty rectifying their status and it is unlikely they will hire Saudis because profit margins are slim in small businesses. Ahmad Bashamakh, a member of the general services committee at the JCCI, said many expatriate workers are actually preparing to leave the Kingdom for good because they cannot work with their sponsors and comply with residency requirements set out by the Passport Directorate. Al-Ahmari told Al-Watan that rectifying the residency status means ending cover-up activities and other violations of the law. “Many districts here have been affected greatly by illegal workers who control these places and open businesses and rent property,” Al-Ahmari said. Under the Saudization program known as Nitaqat, all firms are required to hire a certain percentage of Saudi employees. Bashamakh admitted that while expatriates who run small businesses will be unable to hire Saudis, bigger businesses will largely remain unaffected by the new rules. “By small business I mean those with less than 10 employees. As for bigger businesses, I think they will be unaffected as they can afford to hire Saudis at high salaries,” Bashamakh explained. Under Saudi rules, foreigners are allowed to work only for their legal sponsors but the enforcement of the law has been so far very lax. But the recent change in the approach has affected millions of expatriates and has sparked fears of mass deportations. Some 200,000 people, mostly Asians and Yemenis, were deported from Kingdom in the past three months due to the new restrictions, Passport Department officials say. Many foreigners enter Saudi Arabia under the sponsorship of a Saudi national but end up working for others, or set up their own businesses. The Kingdom officially hosts eight million foreign workers, while economists say there are another two million unregistered non-Saudi workers in the country. In a calming measure, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has ordered the concerned ministries to allow workers violating the labor and residency system a maximum of three months to rectify their situation. The practice of sponsoring expatriates, which repeatedly comes under fire from human rights bodies, has become a lucrative business for many Saudis who engage in trafficking of work visas.
