Increase in total amount of investment, improvement in sources of funding [Archives:2004/757/Business & Economy]

Mahyoub Al-Kamaly
Official efforts are heading for increasing the proportion of total investment within the current prices by a big average estimated at a rate of about 11.5% until the end of the year 2005. This is expected to result in the increase of the proportion of gross domestic product to 26%.
The strategic plans in this area aim at rising and improving the infrastructure of the economy and services as well as increasing productive capacity for providing new job opportunities and activating the role of the private sector in investment. The goal is to raise that role to about 69% out of the total amount of investment and an 18% of the volume of the gross domestic product.
According to the strategic plans, it is expected that the proportion of government would drop by 4.3% at the end of next year against a simple increase for funding the non-governmental sector including the public institutions by 19%.
The end of next year is a date fixed by the governments strategy for alleviation of poverty and implementation of investment projects along with evaluation of its findings with regard to providing job opportunities and the resulting problematic, if any.
The government had defined the total cost of investment projects to be executed during the period 2003-2005 by around YR413.4 billion, of which YR18.9 billion the cost of new projects against YR394.7 billion for projects and programs under construction. The government also mentions that its effort for achieving goals of the human development millennium, it has worked for providing support by donors of the new investment projects but says its efforts have not met with full success. The private sector, on its part, complains of sluggishness of procedures necessary for the investment process due to some prevalent administrative complications in managing work and granting investment licenses.
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