IN a time of openness, you cannot close in on yourself, because time does not wait, and does not have mercy on anyone.

To evolve is a feature of survival. This is why renaissance goes hand in hand with work, production, knowledge, and awareness of others. This rule is unfortunately absent from the minds of officials in Kuwait who insist on closing the country, as if the world is infected with the plague, and we must isolate ourselves.

This is a brief overview of what the world has become accustomed to in the past decades.

On the other hand, the neighboring countries worked to keep up with the times and achieved many benefits because they were not governed by the “expats” complex, and knew how to benefit from them as added value.

All of this does not exist in Kuwait, because officials in the relevant ministries are looking at their feet. Neither the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has realized the meaning of strengthening the industrial sector as a stabilizing factor for society, nor has the Ministry of Finance worked according to what is prevailing in the world, and the Ministry of Interior has implemented the laws of closing the country.

All of these ministries did not pay attention to the negative impacts of these outdated decisions and laws on the national GDP. In 2022, it amounted to about USD 183 billion in Kuwait, while it was about USD 507 billion in the UAE. The reason for this is that this country worked to develop its industries and strengthen its national security in this aspect, as well as enhance food security through local production. It currently has about nine million residents of more than 200 nationalities.

As for Saudi Arabia, it opened its doors to all nationalities, and worked to develop its services, and the industrial and agricultural infrastructure. This is what enhanced its national GDP, which reached USD 1.108 trillion.

On the other hand, what did Kuwait gain from the imprudent decisions taken by its governments in recent years? Nothing at all.

In fact, imports rose to the maximum limits, while factories were closed as a result of the importing merchants’ control over several ministries, including the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of Finance, and Municipality, which together are today considered among the most important ministries that can advance the country.

Is it reasonable that we import everything from nails to cars and even tissue paper? Is there not a single official who realizes the extent of Kuwait’s exposure to the outside world as a result of placing its fate in the hands of importers and profiteers?

Isn’t the government supposed to know its interests, seek to promote them, and work on the principle of getting the best out of the situation?

When someone talks about the importance of expatriates in the national economy, some come out to us and demand their deportation. This person tells you that we do not want them, and that is exactly “what we do to the Bedouns.” So what do these people rely on? Is it the employees in the public sector whose average production per day is 25 minutes?

We also beg to ask - Who built the cities of the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other countries? Wasn’t it the expatriates? And when those projects were completed, they left for their country.

In this regard, I repeat what we said previously, on the authority of the late Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, when some of the people of Dubai objected to Kuwaitis and foreigners owning real estate in Dubai in the 1980s, he said his famous phrase, “If you see a Kuwaiti or a foreigner carry the building to his country, then come to me. These people are the ones building Dubai.”

O Ministers of Commerce, Finance, and Interior, and even the government as a whole, Kuwait is not fine as long as your decisions come in the form of a reaction, instead of an act to revive the country.

This is why you have to learn from neighboring countries because survival is for the strongest in economics and knowledge, and not according to the conversations taking place in some of the diwaniyas.

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times