Yemen reduces military expenditures

The Yemeni Arab republic on Thursday announced that the border agreement it had recently signed with Saudi Arabia will help it reduce its military expenditures and divert the state's assets to channels of economic and social development.

In a statement to press, the Yemeni minister of economic development and planning Ahmad Muhammad Soufan explained that the annual military spending in the years 1997 and 1998 consumed almost 15% of the GNP and more than 32% of the state's budget.

Soufan added that implementing the border agreement will put an end to the security and military spending, strengthen the state's general budget, increase public assets and convert spending into development, as well as bolster investment and tourism in Yemen and improve the general economic conditions in this country.

The Yemeni minister remarked that the border agreement stated that Yemen and Saudi Arabia should work to develop joint investments especially in the area of gas, oil and petrochemicals.

In June, Yemen and Saudi Arabia signed the border agreement which ended a border conflict went back to the 1930s.