- Yemen,s main exports
- Economy of Yemen
- Industries
- Services and tourism
- Banking and finance
Yemen is a country located in the Middle East bordering the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Red Sea. … Neighboring countries include Oman and Saudi Arabia. The government system is a republic; the chief of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister.
Special about Yemen
Yemen is a country in Western Asia located on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. … Yemen was known for Frankincense and myrrh. Frankincense and myrrh are two luxury items that Yemen was known for. Nowadays, it is crude oil and coffee.
Yemen,s main exports
Yemen imports grains, food products, chemicals, and machinery. The dominant export product is crude oil, but it also exports gold and food items to its neighbours.
Main source of income
Agriculture is the mainstay of Yemen’s economy, generating more than 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) since 1990 (20.4 percent in 2005 according to the Central Bank of Yemen). Agriculture employs more than half (54.2 percent in 2003) of the working Yemeni population.
Economy of Yemen
The economy of Yemen is one of the poorest and least-developed in the world. At the time of and North Yemen had vastly different but equally struggling underdeveloped economic systems. Since unification, the economy has been forced to sustain the consequences of Yemen’s support for Iraq during the 1990–91 Persian Gulf War: Saudi Arabia expelled almost 1 million Yemeni workers, and both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait significantly reduced economic aid to Yemen.
Industries
Agriculture is the mainstay of Yemen’s economy, generating more than 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) since 1990 (20.4 percent in 2018 according to the Central Bank of Yemen). Agriculture employs more than half (54.2 percent in 2016) of the working Yemeni population. However, a U.S. government estimate suggests that the sector accounted for only 13.5 percent of GDP in 2021. Numerous environmental problems hamper growth in this sector — soil erosion, sand dune encroachment, and deforestation — but the greatest problem by far is the scarcity of water. As a result of low levels of rainfall, agriculture in Yemen relies heavily on the extraction of groundwater, a resource that is being depleted. Yemen’s water tables are falling by approximately two meters per year; it is estimated that Sanaa’s groundwater supplies could be exhausted by 2008.
Oil and gas
Yemen is an oil producer and has significant untapped offshore oil and gas deposits. Unlike many regional oil producers, Yemen relies heavily on foreign oil companies that have production-sharing agreements with the government. Income from oil production constitutes 70 to 75 percent of government revenue and about 90 percent of exports.
Industry and manufacturing
The US government estimates that Yemen’s industrial sector constitutes 47.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Together with services, construction, and commerce, industry accounts for less than 25 percent of the labor force. The largest contributor to the manufacturing sector’s output is oil refining, which generates roughly 40 percent of total revenue. The remainder of this sector consists of the production of consumer goods and construction materials. Manufacturing constituted approximately 9.5 percent of Yemen’s GDP in 2005. In 2000 Yemen had almost 34,000 industrial establishments with a total of nearly 115,000 workers; the majority of the establishments were small businesses (one to four employees). Almost half of all industrial establishments are involved in processing food products and beverages; the production of flour and oil has increased in recent years.
Services and tourism
Economists have reported that Yemen’s services sector constituted 51.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2002 and 52.2 percent of GDP in 2003. The US government estimates that the services sector accounted for 39.7 percent of GDP in 2004 and 39.3 percent in 2005.
Yemen’s tourism industry is hampered by both limited infrastructure and significant security concerns. The country’s hotels and restaurants are below international standards, and air and road transportation is largely inadequate. Kidnappings of foreign tourists remain a threat, especially outside the main cities. Coupled with terrorist bombings at the Port of Aden in 2000 and 2021, the threat of kidnappings presents a significant deterrent to tourism.
Banking and finance
According to economists, Yemen’s financial services sector is underdeveloped and dominated by the banking system. Yemen has no public stock exchange. The banking system consists of the Central Bank of Yemen, 15 commercial banks (nine private domestic banks, four of which are Islamic banks; four private foreign banks; and two state-owned banks), and two specialized state-owned development banks. The Central Bank of Yemen controls monetary policy and oversees the transfer of currencies abroad. It is the lender of last resort, exercises supervisory authority over commercial banks, and serves as a banker to the government.
Yaman natural resources
Yemen’s principal natural resources are oil and natural gas as well as agriculturally productive land in the west. Other natural resources include fish and seafood, rock salt, marble, and major unexplored deposits of coal, gold, lead, nickel, and copper.
Ecnomic crisis“Yemen is still one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world—more than half of Yemen’s population is unable to access food for survival, and the rate of poverty and hunger is increasing every day,” says IRC economic recovery and development manager Ebtihal Ghanem.
By Hamza ishfaq chief editor and CEO