19 Jan 2019; MEMO: Money transfers by expatriate workers in Kuwait on an annual basis in 2019, remained the same as in 2018.
Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas quoted sources that are well-informed on the balance of payments for the State of Kuwait, stating that the value of workers’ money transfers in the country is expected to be around 4.3 billion Kuwaiti Dinars ($14.2 billion) in 2019, which is the same transferred amount as in 2018.
The newspaper pointed out that these money transfers: “Have not been much affected by the decline in oil prices, the increase in fees, or some replacement attempts by the government in recent years to increase the settlement of national workers to replace expatriates.”
During 2017, money transfers of expatriate workers in Kuwait decreased by 9.2 per cent on a yearly basis, to 4.14 billion Kuwaiti Dinars ($13.7 billion), compared to 4.56 billion Kuwaiti Dinars ($15 billion) in 2016.
Expatriates represented approximately 69 per cent of the total population of Kuwait by the end of June 2018, estimated at 4,588,148 people, according to the statistics issued by the Public Authority for Civil Information, while the statistics of 2019 have not yet been released.
