ABSTRACT
In recent years an important element in the relationship between the six countries which make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — UAE) and the rest of the Arab world, has been the migration of Arab nationals to the Gulf, for employment. This movement is of considerable importance to the economies of the Gulf states where non-national Arab immigrants accounted for about 36 per cent of the total (national and non-national) labour force in 1975. Equally, labour emigration is of crucial significance to the Arab labour-sending economies. In 1983, for example, recorded workers’ remittances to seven of the main Arab labour-sending countries (Egypt, Jordan, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, YAR, PDRY) amounted to $6.9 billion. Merchandise exports from the same countries were valued at only $8.6 billion, and remittances covered almost 52 per cent of the merchandise trade imbalance.
