Eight Million Yemenis Abroad? USD 1 Billion in Remittances
Whoa, last time we checked, it was 2 million abroad. What did they do- give out six million bogus passports in the last two years? (The statistical anomaly is not unusual- during the 2006 elections, there were more registered male voters than men. The official unemployment statistics are pretty funny too.) And now the plan is to establish a monitoring system on Yemeni expats… Does Yemen really need 62 embassies; they’re such money pits. There were those big and repeated announcements in 2005 that the regime was going to close some embassies as money saving measures, Romania I think it was, but it never happened. From the Yemen Observer:
Yemen plans to conduct comprehensive surveys for Yemeni expatriates that would focus on their numbers, jobs, families and activities, and their remittances to their homeland.
According to the Expatriate Affairs Ministry, between 6 and 8 million Yemenis are living in 80 world states including a million people in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, half million people in India, and other large communities in countries such as Indonesia and Britain.
The Yemeni expatriates send almost $ 1 billion in remittance a year, Minister of Expatriate Affairs Ahmed Musa’ed Hussein has said.
Surveys on the conditions of Yemeni expatriates would start next year, the minister said, adding the project is currently being processed in the Cabinet to approve it in the near future.
The ministry has talked to 62 Yemeni embassies to prepare reports on Yemeni communities abroad in an attempt to help them solve problems they face at sea as well as land and air travel when returning home.
Hussein also said that the ministry asked the embassies to give names of administrators of Yemeni communities and names of Yemeni businessmen and academics abroad.
In this context, the Yemeni government is currently handling problems facing investments of Yemeni expatriates in their country ahead of the third expatriate conference which will be held in October.
The conference represents a new step towards activating investment of Yemeni expatriates at home by establishing the best ways to help them contribute to development in Yemen.
