As per a Cabinet statement released on Tuesday, Saudi Arabia has done away with the fees on expatriate workers working in the region's industrial area, which is being eyed sought for development for 5 years. "The government will bear the cost of fees for expatriate workers on behalf of licensed industrial institutions as of October 1, 2019, for five years," the statement said.

To boost job creation, the government of Saudi Arabia levied fees on expatriates for promoting the hiring of local citizens. Further as per the firms, with the levy of such expatriate fees, operational costs increased significantly for them.

The industrial sector is crucial for the region as it will help Saudi to diversify from its position as the chief oil exporter globally as well as enable creation of million of jobs for Saudis.

In February last year, King Salman even gave an approval to reimburse some of the companies' that were finding it difficult to pay constantly increasing fees against expatriate work permits in 2017 and 2018. Also he allowed waiver on fee hikes for some of the companies that were not in a position to pay the fees. Nonetheless, the scheme was for companies that had an equal or higher number of Saudis in comparison to expats.

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