A Yemeni businessman speaks out on investment, the economy, and education

Munir Ali Daair: Yemen shouldn't rely on the GCC, but should learn how fix its own problems.

The major source of the all problems in Yemen is the weakness of the educational system, which fails to produce educationally-healthy individuals, said businessman Munir Ali Daair, a Director at the Dome Trading and Contracting Company.  Work ethics in the government institutions are another problem for the country. We also need to see full-swing, full-fledged campaign continuously to sell and promote Yemen, he said. The Yemen Observer recently met with Daair in order to get a perspective on Yemen’s business opportunities and future from a Yemeni businessman working day to day with the country’s myriad challenges.  
 
Yemen Observer: Tell us about the Dome Trading and Contracting Company?
Munir Ali Daair: In Yemen, we have three major activities: electro-mechanical contracting, maintenance services, and trading activities. Although a major portion of our activities in Yemen are directed towards the oil and gas industries, we are getting increasingly involved with projects in the private and public sectors.  For instance, we are heavily involved with the current projects to create temporary power generation in Aden, Hodeidah, Taiz, Seiyun, Shihr, Mukalla, Ibb, Attaq,  Amran and Lahaj, as well as the ongoing water distribution network project in Hodeida, all of which are government projects.  Also, our involvement in the Yemen Liquefied Natural Gas project is on the increase. Soon, our manpower in this project alone will reach 100, that is 25 percent of our Yemen workforce, and we hope to go beyond that number. As you know, at $ 3.7 Billion, the LNG is the single largest project in the history of Yemen, and we are proud to be counted among the Yemeni companies playing a role in this project.   Apart from Yemen, we are active in the UAE where we have trading activities and are also among the leaders in environmental services which extend to Yemen, we are active in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and China, where we recently opened a branch. We are looking seriously at establishing presences in Sudan, Libya and Iran.  

YO: As a businessman, what effect do you expect the recent attack in Mareb will have on tourism and business generally in Yemen?
MD: Let me tell you this. On the 2nd of January this year I went to Madrid. That was three days after the Madrid airport was bombed. When I heard about the bombing at Madrid airport I was in Paris and I refused to cancel my plans to go to Madrid. I told myself that I will not allow those who bombed the airport to stop my plans to visit Spain, a beautiful country whose people are excellent. So, I am really sad when I hear that an incident happens in Mareb and tourists want to abandon Yemen. Yes, tourists were targeted in Mareb. But who do you think the bombers of Madrid airport were targeting? They were also targeting tourists, who are among the frequent users of Madrid airport. In May I was in London. I used the undergrounds and walked the streets, despite the bombings that had taken place there and the permanent threat of bombings in London.  I am currently planning a trip to Saudi Arabia, despite the attacks that happen there frequently. I can assure you my trips are not some kind of a death wish. What I am trying to say is, it will be a tragedy if we allow those who attack to win by making us abandon our agendas.  Yemen is safe, our children go to schools, our wives shop everywhere and we all go to work. I am not saying we are not vulnerable, of course we are and we can be attacked anywhere in the world at any time with devastating consequences. But then if you want to abandon threatened places you better go live in Pluto.  Those who refuse to come to Yemen because of the Mareb attack must ask themselves, are they safer in their own countries? The UK, the USA, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Indonesia are among the most recent places to be attacked. In fact, these countries have seen more attacks and suffered more casualties than Yemen. So, why are tourists not abandoning these places? But we must also blame our government, we must pressure the government to wake up from its sleep and carry out a fulltime media campaign to counter the unfair press Yemen is getting. I don’t see or hear the government doing this.  

YO: Do you think Yemen’s joining the Gulf Cooperation Council will help encourage investment in Yemen?
MD: What will encourage investment in Yemen is not being a member of a rich men’s club, but housecleaning here in Yemen.  Ask yourself this question, are Egypt, Lebanon, Morrocco, Malaysia and other countries who attract GCC investments members of the GCC?  So how come they get massive GCC investments, while we do not?  In fact, the exchange of investments between the GCC and Yemen is almost equal, while investments between the GCC and other countries are in favor of those other countries.  Moreover, even the current GCC investments in Yemen come mainly from Yemenis who live in the GCC.  We Yemenis like to simplify everything and always look for easy answers.  Firstly, I do not agree with those who say that joining the GCC is good for Yemen. I think it is unnecessary and probably not in the interests of Yemen. We need to think seriously about this. Our government has so far failed to come clean on this subject.  There has been no public dialogue about the pros and cons of Yemen’s joining the GCC. People seem to think that joining the GCC is like some kind of a magic wand that will solve Yemen’s problems and also allow Yemenis to travel en masse to the GCC freely. None of this will happen. Let us be realistic and make our plans and enter negotiations on the basis of realistic expectations, rather than dreams.   So in a nutshell, what will help investments in Yemen is serious internal reforms that will make the country more investor-friendly. The recent investors’ conference was a very good step. I was impressed to see how many people attended. But I can assure you that the massive attendance from the region and other parts of the world had very little to do with Yemen’s potential joining of the GCC and more to do with the investors’ interest in Yemen per se.  We need to build on that, and take the initiative to the next level through a process of continuous follow-up. What happens after meetings and conferences is sometimes more significant than the meeting itself. Follow-up of opportunities is a 24-hour job, 365 days a year. If the GCC membership will help, well and good, we must welcome that, but let us depend on ourselves to create the Yemen we aspire to for our children.   

YO: Where were born and raised?
MD: I was born on January 20, 1954. My father was a merchant in Tanzania where I was born and raised until the age of nine. Then I came to Yemen. I studied in Yemen until the age of twenty. Then I left to United Arab Emirates for almost 25 years before going to France in 2000 where I did business for three years. I am an ex-banker, and I did all my training and studies in the banking industry. 

YO: What inspired the creation of Dome in Yemen?
MD: Dome is a company that was first established in the UAE, and after this Dome was   established in Iraq, and then we came to Yemen, our country. We do different businesses in different parts of the world depending on what is significant in that particular country. In Yemen we do electro-mechanical contracting, maintenance services and trading and most of our work is with the oil and gas industry. And some work with the government but never directly, only as subcontractors. When we decided  to work in Yemen we looked at the sectors most viable to us. We identified power and energy as the sectors having the highest growth potential, where we can aide and participate and profit the country and ourselves as well. This is why we entered this particular line of business.  

YO: What difficulties have you encountered working in Yemen?
MD: I have been working in Yemen for five years now. I have worked in the UAE and done business in France and had the opportunity of experiencing how other parts of the world operate. But this also creates a kind of a work ethic challenge for me in Yemen.  Yemen has been deprived of exposure for a long time, or lets say Yemenis have been deprived of having an international experience. We have lived in a closed society for a very long time for political reasons, social reasons, or cultural reasons. Our society, our youngsters haven’t really had the exposure, there are some, yes, who have had it, but the numbers are small compared to what should be in a country of 20 million people.  We were once ahead of countries in our region, Aden, the port, was ahead, but we have now fallen behind. This is because we were locked up for a long time by the reasons I specified before.  This in fact has deprived the Yemenis of taking their role in doing business at an international level and interacting with internationals, even in things as simple as language. If you look at today what our schools are producing in terms of the ability to communicate with the rest of the world, and compare it to what it was like when we were in school, it is different and better in our time.  One has to ask, what the Ministry of Education is doing? It is a serious question. I always find it tragic when we see our kids go to school five days a week for four hours and a half a day. We think that we can produce an educated mass by schooling them for 22 hours a week? Then there is also the whole month of Ramadhan during which there are virtually no schools in addition to the many holidays we have during the school year. Our forefathers used to defend their lands in battles fasting Ramadhan while we are not able to go to comfortable offices in Ramadhan? We are abusing the very meaning of this sacred month by being lazy and un-productive. Ramadhan has now become an occasion for night to dawn qat chews, TV soap operas and sheshas followed by sleep and no work during the day. What we are doing is actually destroying the very foundation that this country needs to move forward. All you have to do is to look at the government budget on education and compare it with other sectors. And this can tell you what the priorities are.  A society that cannot produce a medically-healthy individual, educationally-healthy individual is not a society that can improve. Look at our medical services and educational services, both are pathetic. For businessmen this is a difficulty, because this means qualified manpower is scarce. As a local company we are trying our best and doing our part both in terms of job creation and training Yemenis. Today we employ about 400 people and the majority of them are Yemenis. We have sent some for training to Germany, the UK and Dubai as well as giving local on the job training. But I would have liked to see the Ministry of Education doing its part too instead of the nonsensical educational policy it follows.
Banking also is very under developed in Yemen and this creates constraints on businesses. Again the lack of advance banking has to do with the absence of qualified manpower. In fact whichever way one cuts it, one finds oneself going back to problems with the quality of education.
Another difficulty that I have as a businessman is the level of corruption in the government. In my case, as somebody who has lived abroad, I find it very difficult to be able to understand or even to co-exist with this corruption in any governmental body. We work mainly with the private sector because we find it difficult to work directly with the government unless you are going to do things that you are not willing to do. I find this very challenging to my mind. 

YO: What made you decide to come to Yemen and how did you find it?
MD: Coming to Yemen was not just to make money for us. If it is a matter of making money, we don’t need to come to Yemen. We came to Yemen because we found it unacceptable to have businesses in other countries but not in our own country. As Yemenis, it is our right and obligation to be here. It is an obligation for us to participate in the country’s growth and our right to benefit from it.
The potential for business in Yemen is immense. It is not the opportunities that are limited in Yemen, but it is the limited resources that limit growth. For those of us willing to invest in resources, Yemen is a great place to be.  

YO: Do you feel that Yemen’s economy and political situation is stable enough for investment? 
MD: Today Yemen is not more unstable than the whole region. Yemen is as stable as Saudi, as Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Egypt, Jordan and any other country in the region. In fact, in some cases we are more stable. At least here we have, to very large degree, a free Parliament and a free press where people can say something. It is true we have not reached nirvana as far as freedom of expression and democracy is concerned, but we are ahead of the countries in the region. And this is a very important contributor to stability.  If you look at the 2006 presidential elections, yes, the governing party unfairly used the advantage of incumbency in the campaigning process, but the balloting itself was clean. Nobody told me when I went to vote who I should vote for. I saw it as clean, and the people I spoke to, both Yemenis and foreigners who were involved with the monitoring told me the balloting was clean.  Yemen has the stability to host business and has the ability to absorb investments, but what Yemen lacks is again capable manpower to manage the investment.  Again, we go back to education. It is education that matters. We have 20 million people. Only 25 percent of our women are literate, according to some international statistics that I remember seeing. Since women are more or less half of the population, we are talking about at least seven million illiterate people only among women. If you add men the number is higher.    YO: Why do you believe that more foreign companies do not invest in Yemen? MD: Let’s look at the scenario. You are a businessman, you come to Yemen to look at the country physically, get the feel of it. You arrive at the airport. You see soldiers armed with machine guns. You drive from the capital Sana’a to other places, and you see security blocks everywhere and a military presence in the cities. You get the impression that the country is in a war, a war zone. Everybody who has a little bit of money and thinks he is important puts a security block in front of his house and armed guards. If I am a foreign businessman, I come to a country and see all this, it doesn’t tell me the country is safe. It tells me that all this military in the streets is because there is a problem here. That is why they have the army in the street, and I would not put my money here. Image is a very important part of what forms in the mind. Despite the fact that this country is very safe, the image we give is the opposite, and appearances matter a lot. Second, you read newspapers including the Yemen Observer, and they talk about corruption, and you hear a lot about corruption. You look at the legal system and how transparent is it. There is a legislative risk in Yemen. We have to address this. Yemen has one of the best laws, but when it comes to enforcement and practices, it is a different matter. It is not conducive to foreigners to come and say let’s do business. We Yemenis have to clean our house with a broomstick. In fact I might send the President a toy broomstick as a present for his next birthday. Lets not just talk about joining the GCC and think that it will solve our problems, what will solve our problems is cleaning the Yemeni house. 

YO: What is one of your biggest complaint about doing business in Yemen?  MD: Working hours in the governmental bodies is a problem when working with the government. Let’s say it is work ethics in general. I would like to see government bodies and institutions working from nine to five. 

YO : What is the most fulfilling part of investing in Yemen         
MD: First of all, investing in Yemen and doing business is very satisfying financially. As I said, for those willing to invest in resources, this is the place to be and it can be financially very rewarding. We are happy and I know many people who do business in Yemen and are extremely satisfied with the return on their investments. For me as a Yemeni there is an additional reason for satisfaction.  I lived most of my life as a foreigner in other countries. It’s a great feeling to be home and to feel that you have importance and are successful in your own country where you are “numero uno”. Also, I can speak freely here on issues that matter to us and feel that I am not looked at as an intruder in affairs that don’t concern me. Everything here concerns me, and that feeling is great.
Another satisfying thing is to feel that we are participating in the building of our country. Ninety percent of our workforce is Yemeni. We have now about 400 people working with us in Dome, and we expect it to go to 450 soon. We are very happy to see that we are creating job opportunities for Yemenis and we are making a difference in our country in our own modest way. In all our activities and the projects we are or have been or will be involved we have a thumb print that will say we contributed in making good things happen in Yemen, we participated in building something, developing, training, creating wealth, we were here and we made a difference. Believe me, you cannot put a price tag on that feeling.

YO: What would you suggest the government in Yemen do to improve the economy and promote the country?
MD: Let’s take tourism for instance which is the talk of the town, and Yemen has a lot to offer in tourism. You hear about conferences and no follow-up. You have different conferences held, how much serious follow-up was there we don’t know? We need follow up. What happens in meetings is important, but more important is how has the program been implemented. What is needed is a full-swing, full-fledged campaign for Yemen internationally, to put people on the international level continuously to sell opportunities and promote Yemen. As I said, marketing is not done one time; marketing is done 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Internationally what is the Ministry of Foreign affairs doing, what’s the Ministry of Tourism doing, and what is the Ministry of Trade doing? These are the tools. We have to promote the name of Yemen internationally. When we talk about terrorist attacks, how many of our governmental officials have gone internationally to say, “Guys, listen, nothing is happening in Yemen that is not happening anywhere else, so lets not make this sound like Yemen is unique.” I want to see my government continuously campaigning for Yemen. We as businessmen are willing to contribute our time and money to campaign for Yemen and officials also have to allocate time and money too. We are willing to participate in all efforts to promote Yemen. We need the government to take a lead, consult with businessmen and be sincere about it. 

YO: Do you think there is enough and effective cooperation between the government and businessmen?
MD: I have had the opportunity to join one government delegation, and I was disappointed by the attitude of the people. I was disappointed by the promotional materials, the grammatical mistakes we had, the language problems. How are you going to promote yourself if you cannot convey yourself clearly linguistically?  If your promotional literature starts to become a joke, people will stop taking you seriously. If we cannot do even that, then we have a serious problem. The government has to ensure that the people who will speak and promote Yemen will do it in the best manner and be understood by the people. Don’t send people abroad because they are your cousin or relative, chew with him qat ok, but don’t take him abroad to speak for Yemen. We have to ensure that those who will speak for Yemen will do a good job.

YO: Talking about Qat, what do you think should be done about Qat.
Qat is definitely a problem but I will not talk about it until I know what we can do with those who find work from it and feed their families from qat.  I cannot suggest to destroy a building, no matter how bad the building, before we can build a new one.        

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