BY MAHYOUB AL-KAMALI
YEMEN TIMES STAFF
How does Yemen's external trade look in the light of its trade balance?
It's a question that's important as Yemen is preparing to join the WTO.
Minister of Industry and Trade Abdulrahman Mohammed Othman has said that Yemen has already handed over a memorandum to the WTO in Geneva on the country's external trade systems as a step for joining it with the purpose of benefiting from the organization.

Yemeni trade structure
Yemen's economic structure is based on a free market economy and deals with international trade with a number of elements. The main factor depends on exports of oil.
In 2000, oil revenues amounted to around $1.2 billion compared to last year's that amounted to $1.3 billion.
The second element deals with international investments in various sectors which amount to more than YR 350 billion.
The tourism sector constitutes an important factor in informing the world about tourist sites in world markets.
Another element is increasing agricultural exports.
Yemen considers oil and gas production will change the economic - trade structure in its dealings in the world of international trade.
The Yemeni government also attaches great importance to Yemen's excellent geographic location and its importance for international trade.
Yemen's geographic situation would qualify it to join the WTO due to connection and interaction with regional and international navigation movement in a manner bigger that the present.
The volume of Yemen's external trade shows a trade deficit, thus joining the WTO would help it achieve balance in its international trade.
The total volume of Yemen's external trade in 2001 amounted to YR 194.8 billion, but YR 34.4 billion is the value of Yemen's exports to Arab markets.
Yemen can benefit from unifying regulations and terms of imports from all countries and from the principle of non-discrimination in the world trade. Yemen also hopes to benefit from the WTO in free access to markets for all and also in removal of restraints and monopoly of information and data.
Yemen also wishes that its international trade would urge economic growth and improvement of job opportunities through attraction of investment capitals.
Therefore, Yemen has to, after presenting its memorandum to the WTO Secretariat at the European headquarters and deliberation among members, enter in multi-lateral dialogues in order to obtain membership.
Large negotiation efforts are in order for Yemen to get its WTO membership.

BY YEMEN TIMES STAFF
For Yemen's economy to grow, the country needs to be less dependant on oil and more on commodities such as agriculture.
It needs to end its deficit and also limit interest on foreign debts. From indicators of annual growth, it seems that economic policies depend on oil revenues without paying attention to productive sectors that can develop a base of strong income and gross national product.
Agricultural sector
Investment plans in the coming years need to be directed to development of the agricultural sector and animal wealth in percentages exceeding what is planned for in the second of the five-year plan, whose percentage is fixed between 2.3% to 4.6% including the gross national product.
There is a need to increase production of cereals, fruits and vegetables for the purpose of moving toward self-sufficiency and a trade surplus.
The present reality of agricultural production causes the national economy to lose millions of dollars, spent on the importation of food, agriculture cans and animal products which weakens the volume of domestic production in agricultural and animal areas.
Thus there is an urgent need for investment in agriculture and in increasing the animal wealth. Steps that must be taken include:
-improving sowing seeds,
-providing plants capable of adapting to the Yemeni agricultural environment,
-increase production of plants such as cotton, coffee and grapes,
-establishing new centers for marketing and exporting,
-providing modern means of transport, as well as building up-to-date factories for animal wealth products and looking for external markets for them,
-finding alternatives to the qat tree and bringing forward suitable solutions giving incomes to those now working in planting the qat tree.

Ports
Investment plans should also be directed to building industrial and productive zones in Yemeni seaports and coasts. especially those proper for investment and establishing a productive base founded on local materials as factories for fish canning and building centres for re-exportation and others for activating tourism on beaches by building tourist hotels, beach cabins and centres for practicing diving.
But tourist investment in beaches and ports requires taking strict measures for securing transport in the regional waters and restoring confidence for vessels and tankers in the security atmospheres in Yemen and its ports and coasts.
Improving the security reputation would facilitate attraction of industrial activities.
It would help establish modern industrial towns, intensified work opportunities, population migration from cities and densely populated capital towards the new industrial regions, activate internal marketing and link it to external trade and exploitation of fish and mineral wealth available on both sides of Yemeni coasts, and to export them to world markets.
Therefore, there must a drawing up of the requirements of ports and coasts infrastructures, and diversifying the base of the national economy.
According to economic experts concepts this trend would create for residents new areas of work and would urge them to discard qat farming.
The governorates far from the coasts and sea ports could in turn play a prolific part in supplying the new industrial areas with materials necessary for the new activities there. And this would create a kind of economic integration and development of the national economy in addition to utilization of mineral riches.
This economic vision proceeds from an accurate diagnosis of economic indications over the past years. Those indications have disclosed weakness of outputs depending on oil and foreign loans for solving development and social crises.
Yemen has opportunities for attracting investments especially by expatriates.
Economic experts also think that the yearly plans within the second year of the five-year plan from 2001-2005 are not able to attain a real development proportion in the gross national product because they can't be accomplished on the ground. The budget suffers from an incurable deficit and external aid is not allotted for strategic projects, but they rather go to social fields to ease the pressure of negative outcomes from the economic reforms.

The Road Ahead
BY RAIDAN A. AL-SAQQAF
r_saqqaf@hotmail.com
"The future is so discontinuous that we can no longer predict it," said Jack Welch, CEO, General Electric. GE's solution was to preempt change, to stop coping with it and start creating it. What a smart way of dealing with change.
Change is inevitable in this new millennium and building a strong foundation for change in today's organizations has become an important managerial task in order to survive. But sometimes, even if the business is flexible and open to change, it has to create change in order to emerge.
Still, creating change is a difficult and enormous challenge. First of all, people are resistant to change; when people first hear about some new idea or change they refuse to believe that it can be done. Then slowly they begin to think about it until they see that it can be done, and then they do it.
In other words people have something known as status quo. It means that as long as they are happy about where they are and what they do, they wouldn't make any changes. As a matter of fact the more important this thing is to them the more they hold on to it and avoid any changes. For example if you are quietly satisfied with your job and its pay, would you consider changing it? Unless there is a good reason or something new up-and-coming, you won't.
Again, as a human being, we need to make changes in our lives, otherwise we might become extinct because it is change that keeps us fresh and innovative. We all know the importance of change but rarely we do it, because we are afraid: afraid that if we make changes we might screw things up for ourselves.
Fear of failure is as common as the desire for success, but when the desire for success overtakes the fear of failure, only then do we take the first step and change, keeping in mind that failure is to be expected and accepted. Life is like a game, except however badly you fail and go back to level one, it's never game over.
The same concept applies for business organizations, managers should keep a close eye on the small changes that occur and know when the business is getting old. In fact, noticing small changes early helps you to adapt to bigger changes that are yet to come and as a result of that, it is possible to assess the potential effect of change and develop a plan to consider alternatives and start moving in a new direction. Such changes keep the business young and powerful.
Remember: Change is essential, and developing a foundation for change is vital for emerging businesses in order to predict it and act fast to discover opportunities.