And i thought the locals here have it great..

Kuwait gives each citizen Dh13,000 and free food (that's close to USD3,500!)


KUWAIT CITY // Kuwaiti citizens will each receive a grant of 1,000 Kuwaiti dinars (Dh13,000) and free food staples for 13 months to mark three major anniversaries, a government statement said.

Roudhan al Roudhan, the minister of state for cabinet affairs, said after the cabinet's weekly meeting on Sunday that the grant reflected the desire of the emir, Sheikh Sabah al Ahmed al Jaber al Sabah, to help citizens improve their living conditions, the state news agency, Kuna, reported. The minister said all citizens will be entitled to the grant.

Foreign workers, who make up about two thirds of the country's population of 3.1 million, are excluded from the largesse.

As part of the gift, Kuwait's system of food rationing, where citizens can buy staples, such as rice, oil, chicken or milk, wholesale at cut prices in co-operative societies, will offer supplies free of charge from next month to March 31, 2013.

Kuwait sits on around nine per cent of the world's oil, and food rationing is just one way in which the state distributes its prodigious wealth. Kuwait was ranked as having the eighth-highest gross domestic product per citizen while taking the cost of living into account in 2010, according to the CIA's World Factbook.

The majority of employed Kuwaiti citizens have jobs in the public sector and are entitled to benefits such as low-cost land, interest-free housing loans, and free education and health care.