Role of Private Sector in Improving National Income [Archives:2002/03/Business & Economy]

Statistics of the general budget of the government revealed that there was a certain kind of carelessness to improve exports of non-oil resources. Efforts have been proved abortive to improve the cultural and industrial production sufficiency. As opposed to this, other countries have proved to be more serious to develop their revenues such as, Japan, and Southern Korea.
In this respect, Yemen and other developing countries have continued to utilize its oil wealth, which is an inexhaustible resource, indifferent to thinking of other resources to guarantee national income through involving the private sector in this respect.
At the same time, Yemen’s economy is in bad deteriorating condition; chronic deficit in the budget is also on the wane. The Budget’s draft law has to assimilate new ideas with regard to the strategic location of Yemen, tourist and spacious sites, mineral wealth, arable land, increasing exports and imports.
It is noticeable that our local markets have suffered from recession as a result of the high increase in commodities and local services against the reduction of the purchasing power with regard to the majority of the people. This will, of course, entails looking for foreign markets to export our local products to.
Local producers see that the local products, the duty procedures and compound taxes are an impeding problem for their activities to gain financial revenues in which local industrialists’ products can prosper. They say revenues from exports will provide them with hard currencies and overliquidity from foreign currencies to be utilized in production. Instead of laying great stress on non-oil export development in its second five plan, industrialists want the government to adopt practical measures with a view of encouraging them to export their products and to face the requirements of the local market demands.
Industrialists confirm that orientation towards foreign markets has resulted in a high increase in industrial production cost due to the burdens which face the local factory owners including, bad banking services, transportation, and non-availability of adequate safety insurance. The other impeding problem is related to small producers who desire to develop their products and purchase their needs from local markets and the result is the loss of their commodities and inability to compete with other products in the foreign markets. The small producers have therefore demanded the necessity to provide essential requirements to their products at suitable prices in the local markets. This will of course encourage them to export some of their products to the adjacent foreign markets.
The national industrialists confirm that the government’s failure to develop the local non-oil revenues can be ascribed to the improper use to develop the agricultural and industrial sectors. They suggest that the commercial specialized banks should have a role in offering credits, orienting savings and financial resources towards exhortations.
In a nutshell, supporting the process of exportation is the proper policy to improve the balance payments, develop the growth rate and to provide new job opportunities for the unemployed. This can be achieved through improving profitable resources for the national income through non-oil exports and involving the private sector in this aspect.

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