Workshop on Yemens plastic bags industry [Archives:2002/31/Local News]

The Yemeni Industrialists Association (YIA) called upon the government to abolish a decree issued by the Cabinet in 1997 to prohibit manufacturing and importing un-dissolved plastic bags and seeking other practical alternatives to be implemented.
A workshop on the difficulties of plastic products industry in Yemen, organized by the YIA last week in Sanaa, demanded the parliament to abolish a term in the cleanliness law which hinders the local plastic industry. Officers at the YIA criticized the Yemeni laws restrictions on the plastic bags thickness that was defined to be 90 microns for local plastic bags as 70 microns for imported bags. They added that the Yemeni market needs about 10 million plastic bags daily and the statistics indicate that the country needs to import 10,000 tons of plastic raw material annually to produce 15-micron-thick plastic bags while this number would dramatically jump to 43,000 tons if the thickness is 60 microns.
Industrialists described the 1997-cabinet decree as unauthentic and could open the door for an illegal competition between local plastic bag manufactures and worldwide manufactures because large masses of plastic bag products are being smuggled into the country under different names such as thermo-bags. Yemeni industrialists expressed their worries over the possible closure of plastic bag plants which will lead to unpredictable damages and loss that investors and workers in these factories will suffer from. Moreover, according to them, it would add to the plastic bag smuggling phenomenon on all levels and nationwide.

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