Taxes hinder investment in Yemen [Archives:2007/1066/Local News]
SANA'A, July 8 ) A modern scientific paper considers the increase of tax averages one of the most important obstacles of investment in Yemen. Also, the tax laws, which are a burden on the private sector, encourage tax payment negligence which in turn explains that the high taxes cause the spread of corruption.
There are taxes on the works classes and non-official taxes such as presents and payments for Government employees with the existence of corporations working out of the law framework. The paper, prepared by the researcher and economist, Dr. Ali Alfakyh who indicated that a number of obstacles which hinder the investment attraction to Yemen are the backwardness of corporational building and infrastructure; lack of the modern courts specialized in investoment and investors' issues, in addition to the security organization which is unable to protect investment and investors properly.
The paper says “a lot of experiments in many countries, to which big investments go, confirm that factors of investmwents attraction lie in security guarantees and stablization, steadiness and suitablity of Government policy, and the existence of strong infrastructure in addition to the access to many foreign markets; participating in international exhibitions; following up exportation process, and following the modern methods of international trading.
The paper shows that Yemen among the countries which are ditinguished by the rareness and weakness of local and foreign investments as a result of some discouraging factors of investments…. indicating that the sum of money deposited abroad that is owned by Yemenis is approximately $135 billion and its alms reaches only $4 billion which equals Yrs 868 billion.
The paper confirms that a great increase in the total investments from YRs 447.8 in 2003 to YRs 596 in 2005, however the ratio importance of the total investment to the local product backwards from 20.7% to 18.6% during the same period, this happened under the influence of the highly weak development of the private investments which reached in annual average 9.8%.
This paper was presented in the First National Economic Meeting held in Sana'a and organized by the Yemeni Industrial Association attended by a number of public and private sectors representatives. It insists on the necessity of promoting the private sector to invest in the different economic sectors rather than developing and improving performance levels that are supprting and enhancing the private sector by the Government Corporations and the official frameworks of the private sector itself.
The paper entitled “Investment……Obstacles & Encouraging Factors” asked for enhancing the development possiblities in Yemen Economy, reforming the Judicial System and the corporations authorized to promote investment in order to find proper atmosphere for investment…indicating that stablity of exchange prices, stopping deterioration in the currency price, following all possible ways to decrease inflation rate, and finding reserve stock of foreign currencies in reasonable ratios are all necessary requirements to bring and attract investment to the country.
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