A Business Enterprise In Yemen
Yemen is termed as the only republican country in the Arabian Peninsula. It is surrounded by Saudi Arabia, Red Sea and Oman. Yemen has a very rich civilization which can be traced back to the 6th century, passed on from dynasties and today. It has Sana'a as the capital city which also has one of the International airports of the country. Unlike other Arabian countries, Yemen has very small oil resource, but still the government earns its majority revenue from oil taxes .foreign investors are attracted towards Yemen mainly because of its hydrocarbon industry. Yemen also has a very large natural gas resource which has not yet been fully utilized. The oil of Yemen is assumed to get depleted by 2011; the economic collapse then occurring can be avoided by the full utilization of natural gas and hydrocarbon industry.
Many economic reform programs have been planned, developed and implemented by the government of Yemen along with international monetary fund. These reform programs mainly aimed at strengthening the economic stability, increasing the employment rate, and earning more revenue from the non oil sectors. Yemen also has made many reforms in the Real estate sector laws have been modified such that even the non Yemenites can purchase and construct buildings in Yemen. These reforms have lead to Yemen being considered as one among those countries where constructions of buildings are the least restrictive. The government has even slashed the taxation on business profit from 35% to 20% making construction and real estate more attractive for foreign investors.
The setting up of business in Yemen is easy and takes a time from 13 to 63 days varying with the type of business establishment. There are seven minimum procedures which are to be followed in all cases the number of procedures increases with the business undertaking. To begin with the specimen application form had to be filled and submitted from the Commercial register. The company must be registered under the Ministry of Trade and Commerce and also under General Taxes. Only after these will the taxation card will be available to the company. For making Yemen a more attractive field for doing business the registration fee for large companies have been reduced drastically and small companies have been exempted from registration fee completely, but they need to register themselves for future expansion if required.
Yemen along with the Central Bank of UAE has developed providing credit to investors. The number of people in this has increased to a large number. It is also seen that the majority of unemployment and poverty in Yemen is found in women hence to overcome this situation women are being encouraged in business. Thus a large number of women are now in business in Yemen. The government of Yemen even provides assistance to simplify the registration of business for women.
The modified land reform and real estate laws have made solving the land dispute issues easy. Land disputes which arises in any of the large budget or investment programs are now solved very easily. The registration fee for real estate property has also slashed rapidly making business in real estate more attractive. Even when terrorism destroyed the image of Yemen the 20th gulf cup in Yemen modified the destroyed image and more tourists are now approaching Yemen, thus opening a new source of revenue to Yemen through Tourism
