RIYADH — The government is to introduce tough new measures to combat businesses solely run by expatriates in the name of a Saudi, otherwise known as tasattur, reported Al-Jazriah on Wednesday. Sources said the Commerce Ministry would draft new laws in collaboration with the Interior Ministry. The Commerce Ministry has been authorized to cooperate with all other concerned bodies to continuously spread awareness about the adverse effects of such ventures on the national economy and the punishments those involved could face. Under existing laws, Saudi citizens who enable a foreigner to make investments in their name are committing the illegal act of tasattur. The sources said expatriates are banned from conducting any commercial, vocational, industrial, economic, agricultural, banking, educational, medical or transport activities using the names, commercial registrations or licenses of Saudi citizens. The ministry recently revealed that an Arab expatriate ran a tasattur business in the name of a psychologically ill Saudi for 17 years and left the establishment with debts of over SR2 million. The ministry closed the establishment, cancelled its registration and took the expatriate to the Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution (BIP) prior to a court trial. According to the sources, the Kingdom is the second top country in the world in terms of the foreign remittances of expatriates. They expected the remittances of expatriates to reach more than SR160 billion by the end of the year and said about 65 percent of these remittances were made by expatriates involved in tasattur.
