Industry experts have rebuffed claims that the United Arab Emirates has halted issuing visas for Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis, Khaleej Times reported.

“I got a visa for an Indian applicant at a company that has a diverse workforce. However, when I tried to get one for an applicant at an establishment with an overwhelming majority of Indian employees, I got the ‘achieve diversity’ message,” Firosekhan, the managing director of Dubai-based Profound Business Service, said.

There were claims on social media that some companies in the Gulf countries have been unable to procure work visas for potential employees of certain South Asian nationalities.

According to the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, companies should diversify nationalities when hiring. Such a decision was linked to the demographic diversity of the establishments and was not associated with a specific nationality.

The ministry told the news outlet that the first 20 per cent of a company’s workforce must be diversified. The representative added that the company should recruit someone of a different nationality for a role if their first choice was not granted a visa for any reason.

An executive of another business centre said the UAE wants to bring diversity to the workplace.

“Many companies in the UAE have a majority of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis as employees. So if a company already has a large number of employees from these three nationalities, they are not able to apply for new visas for people from the same countries,” said Abdul Gafoor, the general manager of Al Mas Businessmen Service.