[11 September 2005] By Abdul-Salam Al-Korary.

Yemeni economy has been witnessing fast growth ever since the revolution victory. Several breakthrough had been already made in the various fields.
Industrial installations had begun from scratch in 1962 to reach up to more than 49 thousand by the end of 2003.

The agricultural cultivated areas have raised up from 900 thousand hectare to come up to over a million and 199 hectare .

Thus , an increasingly growth rates had been reached out in the sectors of fishery , tourism , investment and oil. In addition to that , great strides had been made in field of the economical and financial reforms resulted in reducing the general budgetary deficit from 17.1 % to merely 2% .

In addition to that higher inflation has eventually been put under control and the deficit in the trade balance turned into surplus. Furthermore, external debts reduced to 55% per cent.

Below is a record of the most prominent progressions over the past period in the domains of the productive sectors as well economical and financial reforms.

OIL & GAS.
The oil exploration efforts reached out to the first oil discovery on July 8, 1984 , when president Saleh had launched the oil producing process in the deposit of Marib/Al-Gawf.

Ever since, the country re-unification in May 1990, the exploration activities have been increasingly accelerating all over the country and oil sector has developed rapidly.

The country has been divided into a number of oil and gas exploration concessions . Based on the Petroleum map , there are now up to (70) petroleum blocks out of which 7 productive and 30 are exploratory , while 33 others are still open and viable for domestic , Arab and international investments.

Some 30 international companies are operating their activities in the field of oil exploring and producing in Yemen nowadays.

Yemen’s oil production at the present ranges between 450-470 thousand per barrel a day, whereas oil reserve in the country estimated at approximately (5.7) billion barrels.

The annual average of crude oil production has multiplied from (69) million barrel in 1990 , to (157) in 2003. Consequently , oil and gas revenues have increased from 103.3 billion YR in 1993 to reach at 480 billion YR in 2003.

Hence, the public sector shared in (32%) of the GDP in 2003 , in excess of 3 points per cent of the previous year.

Likewise, gas sector has been developing quickly, thereby gas explorations findings in Yemen revealed a tremendous amount of gas reserve estimated at 17 trillion cubic foot , while the average of gas production calculated about (2.75) billion CF per a day, out of which (2.5) billion CF is being retentioned currently to keep the latent pressure and produce large amount of oil.

The government has embraced to several schemes and policies aiming at promoting investments in this field. Hence , it established the Yemeni company for liquid gas with the purpose of exporting the Yemeni gas iand setting up a number of projects aimed to meet the increasing demands of the domestic market.

Tourist Sector.
Yemen has got great deal of tourist potential , however this advantage has not been exploited yet to develop tourist sector as it should be.The government has recently adopted several measures in a bid to push up the development drive in the tourist domain.

Most important step the government has taken is that promoting the national capital and international alike to invest in the tourist field. Thereupon, tourists total number who had been to Yemen has increased from 42,000 in 1990 to 150,000 in 2003.

Consequently, tourism revenue has reached to ($US138) million dollar in 2003, in excess of ($US34) million dollar of the previous year and ($US93) million dollar of 1993.

Tourist utilities and facilities have been improving constantly as well as tourist services are available all over the country.

Hotels ranks range from five stars to one single star. There are six 5* hotels, fourteen 4*, forty-five 3*, eighty six 2* and one hundred forty nine 1*, moreover hundreds of pensions and service-flats .

During the period 1990-2003, tourist utilities had increased from (670) to ((2575) helped creating around 14,000 jobs. The overall lodging capacities of the hotels had increased from (2342) beds in 1990 to (5609) rooms and (12748) beds in 1997, to come up to (11890) rooms and (33066) beds in 2003.

The tourist business witnessed a remarkable improvement last year as the increase of tourists number estimated at 58% comparing to the past year. Meanwhile, the tourist revenues had grown with (31%) percentage, tourism's share in the GDP ran up to 14%.

Investment.
After the investment law No.(22) had been issued in 1991, investment sector experienced a tangible amelioration. The law had played a key role in promoting investment business in the country because it law has offered several incentives and concessions to the Yemeni, Arab and foreign investors.

Thereby, the investments applications had increased gradually over the 12 past years and the invested projects multiplied to reach at (4790) until June 2004.
These invested projects distributed to the different economical and services activities have created more than 153,000 job opportunities.

Economical and Financial Reform.
The Yemeni government has been embracing to economical , financial and administrative reforms programs since 1995.

These reform programs have managed to bring about a number of positive results as follow:
The growth rate of the GDP reached to 3.8% by the end of 2003, while the growth average came up to 8% in some economical sectors in the same period.

The general budget deficit has reduced from 17% of the GDP in 1994, to 2% in 2003.
The high rate of inflation decreased from 70% to 5%. The external debts has been reduced from $US11 billion dollar to some $US5.3 billion dollar.
The Second Five Year Plan 2001-2005, has been making good performance in the economical and developmental spheres. Over the three years 2001-2002 -2003, the annual growth rate reached to 4.23%.

This average just lags 1.4 point behind the targeted percentage. Whereas, the governmental investments has redoubled from 88.8 billion YR in 2000, to run up to 211 billion YR over the years 2001-2004 , with growth average up to 39.9%.
Saba