Report reduces prospects for Yemeni incorporation with GCC [Archives:2006/933/Business & Economy]
A report recently published in the Gulf by the Emirates Center for Studies reduced prospects of success of a 10-year plan concerning Yemen's economic qualification in introduction to Yemen's accession to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The report considers it not possible for the plan to realize its set-up objectives under large disparities between the two sides. It called for in-depth and more transparent dialogue to bridge the two sides' dissimilarities.
The report explained that the plan was forwarded by the Yemen government to the GCC on qualification of Yemen's economy under support of the GCC countries. The plan aims at pushing forward the process of development, reforming the infrastructures and qualification of manpower so that Yemen will be able to bridge the economic gap between it and the GCC states. That would qualify Yemen to join the GCC.
Upon that plan a GCC decision was taken for establishment of a technical committee grouping representatives from GCC states finance ministries, Yemeni ministry of planning and international cooperation and general secretariat of the GCC in cooperation with international financial parties. The technical committee's task is to prepare necessary studies to determine Yemen's development needs and change them into a working plan according to an investment program up until the year 2015 at an overall cost estimated at $40 billion.
The report mentions that the economic axis is the weakest link precluding Yemen's accession to the GCC. There are security, political, ideological and social problems that are more complicated than and more sensitive than the economic dossier, despite all of its dimensions and consequences. Nevertheless, the report mentions that the plan for bridging the economic gap between Yemen and the GCC states through fixed financial investments amounting to $ 40 billion through ten years cannot bring close the growing economic gap between the two sides mainly because economies of the Gulf state are presently moving by bid growth rates, the highest in the region due to huge financial revenues and huge investment opportunities available for them while they are not available with the same amount for Yemen, at least under the recent rise of oil prices to standard levels.
The report considers that the two sides' economic gap is expanding continually. Gulf States generally enjoy the world's highest per capita income level, as a Gulf citizen's average income exceeds $135,000. Average individual income in Abu Dhabi alone is more than $46,000, whereas 42 percent of Yemen's 21-million population live below the poverty line.
The average Yemeni income amounts to only $510, less than four percent of his Gulf counterpart's average income. Added to this is the vast difference in the two sides' unemployment rates. Yemen suffers a very high unemployment rate of 22 percent and illiteracy levels reaching 50 percent, among the Arab region's highest rates.
The report considers these differences as a brief image of the state of social and economic differences separating Yemen and the Gulf states. They are differences difficult to overcome in the 10 years the plan has set for qualifying Yemen and bridging the economic gap with Gulf States.
The report also included requisites and demands for Yemeni qualification with more than a 10-year economic plan to recover Yemen's exhausted economy. According to the report, Yemen's accession to this grouping is an issue with complicated and intermingling dimensions, some connected to both positive and negative aspects of Yemen's domestic situation. Others relate to peculiarity of GCC states and similarity in their political, security, cultural, social and economic systems, which differ from Yemen in many aspects.
This requires embarking on conducting a deeper and more transparent dialogue to reduce the two sides' differences and attain the highest possible level of success in achieving each party's interests. It also is intended to stabilize trust and remove fears regarding future horizons in developing the two parties' relations.
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