KUWAIT CITY — The government and the National Assembly are close to approving short-term and long-term measures to cut the country’s number of expatriates by as many at 360,000 workers.

The government’s plan reportedly calls for deporting 120,000 illegal workers and 150,000 expatriates aged over 60 which include employees, dependents or those suffering from chronic disease,Kuwait Times reported on Monday. It quoted a member of the assembly’s manpower resources development committee Osama Al-Shaheen as saying. The plan also includes deporting 90,000 marginal and poorly educated laborers.

Minister of Social Affairs Mariam Al-Aqeel was asked to submit “timelines for implementation, like setting an exact timetable for the next five years showing the size of cuts each year,” Khalil Al-Saleh, member of Parliament said as per the Kuwait Times report.

He also said that the government is supposed to submit legislation in order to implement the plan by the end of the week.

“This will allow the committee to complete its report next week and submit it to the assembly for voting,” the newspaper said.

Data shared in the government plans reportedly show that the Kuwaiti population grew by 55 percent to 1.33 million between 2005 and the end of 2019, while expatriates grew by more than 130 percent to 3.08 million during the same period.

Expatriates make up about 70 percent of Kuwait’s population, according to Kuwait Times. — Agencies