Yemeni investments in Hargeisa exceeded two billion dollars
English - Wednesday 01 September 2021 الساعة 09:31 am
Aden, NewsYemen, Exclusive:
The political turmoil that Yemen has experienced since 2011, and the war that followed in late 2014, which is currently raging, prompted the national capital to migrate outside the country and spread it all over the world, depriving Yemenis of job opportunities and weakening the economy.
Yemeni investors estimated the money that settled in Somaliland and its capital, Hargeisa, at more than two billion dollars, all of which came out of Yemen after 2011, the year that Yemen lost its stability and balance.
A Yemeni investor in Hargeisa told NewsYemen that Yemeni investments account for 5% of the total foreign direct investment in Somaliland, distributed between large, small and medium projects.
He added, the largest Yemeni investments secured the National Mills Company affiliated with businessman Shukri Al-Faris, Al-Zaylai Poultry Investments, Bin Juraibah, and hundreds of other investment projects in the commercial sector, building materials sector, agricultural sector, and service sector.
He explained that the majority of Yemeni investors in the city of Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, invest in the commercial sector, trading in cosmetics, building tools, restaurants, decorations, and household appliances.
The unstable economic, political, and security conditions, and the Houthi militia's pressure on the private sector, led to more capital flight abroad, with the multiplication of challenges and dilemmas that made the national economy unbalanced.
A recent statistic stated that Yemeni investments in Egypt amounted to two billion dollars during the past ten years.
The economic expert, Dr. Youssef Saeed, professor of economics at the University of Aden, confirmed that the capital that left Yemen since 2014, about 30 billion dollars, included the money of real investors, and others who came with it from dirty sources such as war merchants.
The national economy expert added that investors' capital came out of Yemen in search of safe and legal investment opportunities, due to the weak investment environment, the judiciary, the absence of stability and the overall economic deterioration in the country, where the war constituted an expulsion factor for financial assets.
Businessman Ali Muhammad Al-Matari said that the owner of the capital is looking for a sound and safe environment for him and his money and its development, and this is a legitimate right, stressing that when Yemenis left their homeland and went to other countries, some of them entered the field of real estate, especially in Turkey, and some of them entered manufacturing in Egypt, including in other business.
He added, "The money that left Yemen is very large money from big traders, middle traders, and even small traders."
