Gulf Arab states will soon begin hiring hundreds of government tax executives to manage the introduction of value-added tax (VAT) on goods and services from next year, recruitment industry experts told Zawya.

At a meeting in Riyadh in June last year finance ministers from the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) formally agreed to introduce tax across the bloc from January 1, 2018. At the time, Trefor Murphy, CEO of Dubai-based recruitment firm Cooper Fitch, forecast that the move would create thousands of new jobs for tax and accountancy executives across the region.

“We talked about 5,000 jobs being created. I would now suggest that is a significant understatement,” he told Zawya in an interview on Thursday.