More than one million expatriates, including Indians, living for over 10 years in Saudi Arabia, can benefit from an amended naturalisation law, which offers them citizenship of the kingdom and related rights.

Expatriates of all nationalities, who have been living in the kingdom for over 10 years, are entitled to apply for Saudi citizenship and their travels abroad with re-entry visas will not disqualify them, a senior official said.

There are nearly 8.8 million expatriates, mostly Asians and Arabs, in the Kingdom.

More than one million expatriates would benefit from the amended naturalisation law, which was passed by the council of ministers on Monday, Under-Secretary for Civil Status in the Interior Ministry Nasser ibn Hamad Al-Hanaya told the Arab News daily.

The amended law increased the applicants' period of stay in the Kingdom from five to 10 years in order to help them acclimatise with the Kingdom's culture and traditions.

Referring to the job requirements mentioned by the new law, Al-Hanaya said holders of degrees in medicine, computer science and other branches of science and technology would be given priority. "The jobs required by the country will change in accordance with new developments."

If a Saudi husband changes his nationality, his Saudi wife would not lose her nationality as was the case in the previous law.

For providing false information to get citizenship, an applicant will be jailed for two years and fined Saudi Riyal 30,000 (Rs 300,000) instead of SR 1,000 according to the previous law.

The citizenship, according to the previous law, will be withdrawn if a person commits any crime related to morality or undermines security within five years after naturalisation.

Al-Hanaya said a person would lose Saudi citizenship if he works for the interest of another country or commits treachery or plots against the country or joins a foreign army or gains citizenship of another country without taking prior permission from Saudi authorities.

However, the law would take at least four months to come into effect. "We will look into applications only after an executive by-law is issued on the amended law," he said.