Abu Dhabi: The number of Nepalese in the UAE has risen by about 20 per cent in the past 20 months, the outgoing Nepali ambassador to the UAE told Gulf News.
As per the latest statistics available with the embassy, the number of Nepalese nationals in the UAE is around 150,000, Arjun Bahadur Thapa said in an interview recently.
The number rose from around 125,000 in mid-2010, he said.
Official figures in 2008 September had showed that there were 125,258 Nepalese in the UAE and the number had been steady until mid-2010, the envoy said.
Thapa completed a fouryear tenure as the ambassador in the UAE and returned to Nepal last week.
He said his tenure was fruitful with the support of local authorities and diplomat friends from other countries.
The envoy said Nepalese in the UAE have been hardworking and disciplined and earned a very good reputation which in turn had created demand for Nepalese employees in the country.
The embassy has also been promoting Nepalese workers among employers at all given opportunities to create job opportunities for them, Thapa said.
Of 150,000 Nepalese in the UAE, about 60 per cent are living in Dubai, about 25 per cent in Abu Dhabi and the rest of them in other emirates, he explained.
At least 45 per cent of them are employed in the construction sector, Thapa said. He said many Nepalese also work in the hospitality sector and with security companies [as security guards] with professionals accounting for the rest.
Nepalese security guards have always maintained their popularity in the UAE for their trustworthiness, Thapa said.
The envoy said the Nepalese government has been taking strict action against unscrupulous recruitment agents who cheat job-seekers. The registered agents are authorised to take only 70,000 Nepali Rupees (Dh3,205) as the recruitment fee from the candidates, he said.
Authorities would blacklist agents or cancel their registrations for overcharging, Thapa said. He said complainants were sometimes unable to press charges because unscrupulous agents overcharged them without issuing receipts.
He urged jobseekers to demand proper receipts for the amount they paid recruitment agencies.
He observed that the number of tourists visiting Nepal from the UAE had also been on the rise. People of most nationalities are able to get a tourist visa on arrival in Nepal and the embassy usually has to issue very few visas, he added.
Abu Dhabi Nepal is pushing ahead with an initiative to issue electronic passports and phase out handwritten documents.
The renewal of Nepalese passports takes about one month now because Nepal has started converting handwritten passports into electronic passports, the country's outgoing ambassador Arjun B. Thapa said.
Earlier, the embassy used to renew passports the same day but the process takes about a month now because electronic passports are issued from Kathmandu, Thapa said.
Nepal plans to phase out handwritten passports before 2015 as per an international pact, he said.
The embassy in Abu Dhabi provides consular services like passport renewal to all Nepalese in the UAE because there is no Nepalese consulate in Dubai, he sad.
The majority of residents from the northern emirates prefer to collect it personally, he said.
Thapa said Nepal does not have any immediate plans to open a consulate in Dubai.
