YEMEN CALLS ON DONORS TO REDUCE ITS FOREIGN DEBTS

SANA'A, Jan. 27 (Saba)- A Yemeni official has called on the donor
countries and organizations participating in the London conference
on Yemen to reduce his country's debts since servicing them has
become dependent on the public budget.

In an interview with the London-based newspaper al-Hayat, Hisham
Sharaf, the deputy Minister of Planning and International
Cooperation, urged the industrial countries and the principal
international organizations, in particular the World Bank, to take
courageous steps towards Yemen to halve its debts.

"Yemen's foreign debts are estimated at $ 6 billion, most of them to
international and Arab financial institutions", Sharaf said.

"The time has come for brotherly and friendly countries, in
particular the Gulf Cooperation Council states, to look at
supporting the Yemeni balance of payments so as to strengthen
Yemen's financial position and national currency. We need such a
step which we deserve. Yemen used to have such support for the
balance of payments 15 years ago".

The Yemeni official pointed out that Yemen needs $50 billion during
the next 10 years to build an infrastructure that serves the
citizen, attracts investment, and moves Yemen from the least
developing countries to the ranks of developing ones which achieve
development and improve basic services.

Sharaf expected the London conference to unify the international
community's vision of the security, economic, and development
challenges facing Yemen, draw up the concepts for helping and
standing with it in terms of development, and raise its military and
security capabilities so as to achieve security in the Red Sea, Gulf
of Aden, and Arabian Sea areas.

He said Yemen intends to present its ideas to the conference in
which 21 foreign and Arab countries are participating. Yemen's
delegation will be led by Prime Minister Ali Mohammad Mojawar.

The Yemeni official went on to say: "We are hoping that the London
conference will be the right opportunity for highlighting before
everyone the challenges facing Yemen. We believe the world can
achieve with us a partnership for confronting them in the right way".

He pointed out that Yemen needs those who stand with it against the
security, economic, and development challenges, especially poverty,
unemployment, and the needs in the roads, health, education, water,
sewage, ports, and airports fields.

Sharaf stressed that his country pledges to press ahead with the
implementation of a programme of serious and comprehensive reforms
in all fields, particularly those of administration and economy, and
to establish the authority of security and law and deal with the
world in a good way.

He added that Yemen does not have a problem with its ability to
absorb the foreign grants and loans, saying that its problem is one
of management and it can absorb twice the amount of $5.7 billion
pledged by the donors at the London conference held in February 2006.

He stressed that Yemen "will become a large workshop for absorbing
the money and 2010 is going to be the year of completing the signing
of the financing agreements, putting out tenders, and asking
companies to start implementing the various development projects".

YA