Six million Yemeni expatriates in 55 countries invest $5 billion inside the country and $33 billion abroad. A recent study revealed that there are about 5 million Yemeni expatriates distributed over 55 countries.

The study went on saying that the overall cost of the projects executed by these expatriates in Yemen mounts to billions, providing over 15,000 job opportunities.

The study estimates that the amount of the Yemeni expatriates’ capital invested abroad is $33 billion, with Saudi Arabia on top of the number of expatriates which amounts to 317,000.

They include 315 businessmen and 144 scientifically skilled persons. The Yemeni community in UAE consists of 700,000 expatriates. 7o of these are businessmen, while 74 of them are scientifically skilled. In Bahrain, there are 100,000 yemeni expatriates. There are 11000 Yemenis in Qatar, including 4 businessmen, 7 scientifically skilled men. Kuwait contains 7656 Yemeni people consisting of 8 businessmen and 15 scientifically skilled persons.

The Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor Shaif al-Zaghir said that the Yemeni expatriates play a focal role in supporting hundreds of families, provision of hard currency, Fixing of the local currency rate, limiting inflation increase, activation of tourism, transport and communications, the promotion and marketing of Yemeni goods outside the country, as well as the establishment of many different projects.

Shaif criticized the weak ability of the relevant governmental and private sector’s ability to create necessary links and partnership with the expatriates to attract and employ working forces on their establishments.

Added to this is the failure of access to the largest financial houses and political figures in Malaysia, which are of Yemeni origin in order to provide facilities for the benefit of Yemeni manpower and the national economy.

The most important challenge to Yemen is the achievement of the objectives of the third fifth social and economic development plan, which aims at the control of unemployment rate at 14% rate and the decrease of youth unemployment to 10 percent by the end of 2010, Shaif said.

With regard to the investment climate and regulatory legislations the study has also asked the government to provide infrastructures, encouraging economic and commercial environment to improve the outcome of domestic and foreign investment in addition to attracting Yemeni expatriates abroad to focus their investments in Yemen to help achieve sustainable growth and employment of the labor force.

The working opportunities for the skilled Yemeni manpower abroad, will contribute to decreasing unemployment, especially after the latest Yemeni –Gulf talks in Cairo which gave priority to Yemeni workforce on condition that they provide the demanded trained elements, as well as the Saudi acceptance of a monthly intake of 10,000 chances provided that they meet the demanded competent skills.