Йемен экономикасы: қиындықтар мен реформаларға ұмтылыс

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|imports = $800.999 million (2022 est.) |current account = −$1.236 billion (2017 est.) At the time of unification, South Yemen and North Yemen had vastly different but equally struggling underdeveloped economic systems. Since unification, the economy has been forced to sustain the consequences of Yemen's support for Iraq during the 1990–91 Persian Gulf War: Saudi Arabia expelled almost 1 million Yemeni workers, and both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait significantly reduced economic aid to Yemen. The 1994 civil war further drained Yemen's economy. As a consequence, Yemen has relied heavily on aid from multilateral agencies to sustain its economy for the past 24 years. In return, it has pledged to implement significant economic reforms. In 1997 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved two programs to increase Yemen's credit significantly: the enhanced structural adjustment facility (now known as the poverty reduction and growth facility, or PRGF) and the extended funding facility (EFF). In the ensuing years, Yemen's government attempted to implement recommended reforms: reducing the civil service payroll, eliminating diesel and other subsidies, lowering defense spending, introducing a general sales tax, and privatizing state run industries. However, limited progress led the IMF to suspend funding between 1999 and 2001. In late 2005, the World Bank (which extended Yemen a four year US$2.3 billion economic support package in October 2002, together with other bilateral and multilateral lenders) announced that, as a consequence of Yemen's failure to implement significant reforms, the World Bank would reduce financial aid by one third over the period July 2005 through July 2008. A key component of the $2.3 billion package — $300 million in concessional financing — has been withheld, pending the renewal of Yemen's PRGF with the IMF, which is currently under negotiation. However, in May 2006 the World Bank adopted an assistance strategy for Yemen, under which it will provide approximately $400 million in International Development Association (IDA) credits over the period FY 2006 to FY 2009. In November 2006, at a meeting of Yemen's development partners, a total of $4.7 billion in grants and concessional loans was pledged for the period 2007–10. At present, despite possessing significant oil and gas resources and a considerable amount of agriculturally productive land, Yemen remains one of the poorest of the world's low income countries; more than 80 percent (2018) of the population lives in poverty. The influx of an average 1,000 Somali refugees per month into Yemen looking for work is an added drain on the economy, which already must cope with a 20 to 40 percent rate of unemployment. Yemen remains under significant pressure to implement economic reforms, lest it face the loss of badly needed international financial support. As a result of civil war, Yemen is suffering from inflation and devaluation of Yemeni rial, and Yemen's economy contracted by 50% from the start of the civil war on 19 March 2015 to October 2018.

This is a chart of trend of gross domestic product of Yemen (since unification) at market prices estimated by the International Monetary Fund with figures in millions of Yemeni Rials. Year Gross domestic product US dollar exchange Inflation index (2000=100) 1989 125,562 11.70 Yemeni Rials 5.10 1995 516,643 40.49 Yemeni Rials 51 2000 1,539,386 161.00 Yemeni Rials 100 2005 2,907,636 191.37 Yemeni Rials 175

For purchasing power parity comparisons, the US Dollar is exchanged at 150.11 Yemeni Rials only. Mean wages were $1.06 per man hour in 2009. Remittances from Yemenis working abroad and foreign aid paid for perennial trade deficits. Substantial Yemeni communities exist in many countries of the world, including Yemen's immediate neighbors on the Arabian Peninsula, Indonesia, India, East Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Beginning in the mid 1950s, the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China provided large scale assistance to the YAR. This aid included funding of substantial construction projects, scholarships, and considerable military assistance.

In the south, pre independence economic activity was overwhelmingly concentrated in the port city of Aden. The seaborne transit trade, upon which the port relied, collapsed with the closure of the Suez Canal and Britain's withdrawal from Aden in 1967. Only extensive Soviet aid, remittances from south Yemenis working abroad, and revenues from the Aden refinery (built in the 1950s) kept the PDRY's centrally planned Marxist economy afloat. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and a cessation of Soviet aid, the south's economy effectively collapsed. Since unification, the government has worked to integrate two relatively disparate economic systems. However, severe shocks — including the return of approximately 850,000 Yemenis in 1990 from the Persian Gulf states, a subsequent major reduction of aid flows, and internal political disputes culminating in the 1994 civil war — hampered economic growth.

Agriculture is the mainstay of Yemen's economy, generating more than 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) since 1990 (20.4 percent in 2005 according to the Central Bank of Yemen). Agriculture employs more than half (54.2 percent in 2003) of the working Yemeni population. However, a U. S. government estimate suggests that the sector accounted for only 13.5 percent of GDP in 2005. Numerous environmental problems hamper growth in this sector — soil erosion, sand dune encroachment, and deforestation — but the greatest problem by far is the scarcity of water. As a result of low levels of rainfall, agriculture in Yemen relies heavily on the extraction of groundwater, a resource that is being depleted. Yemen's water tables are falling by approximately two meters per year; it is estimated that Sanaa's groundwater supplies could be exhausted by 2030. The use of irrigation has made fruit and vegetables Yemen's primary cash crops. With the rise in the output of irrigated crops, the production of traditional rain fed crops such as cereals has declined. According to the Central Bank of Yemen, the production of khat, a mildly narcotic and heavily cultivated plant that produces natural stimulants when its leaves are chewed, rose 6.7 percent in 2005 and accounted for 5.8 percent of GDP; the consumption of khat is widespread in Yemen. According to the World Bank and other economists, cultivation of this plant plays a dominant role in Yemen's agricultural economy, constituting 10 percent of GDP and employing an estimated 150,000 persons while consuming an estimated 30 percent of irrigation water and displacing land areas that could otherwise be used for exportable coffee, fruits, and vegetables. The World Bank predicts that Yemen's oil and gas revenues will plummet during 2009 and 2010, and fall to zero by 2017 as supplies run out; the UK's Royal Institute for International Affairs warns that instability in Yemen could expand a zone of lawlessness from northern Kenya to Saudi Arabia, while describing Yemen's democracy as "fragile" and pointing to armed conflicts with Islamists and tribal insurgents as causes of instability. As a result, Western entities and other diplomats and leaders have an interest in maintaining Yemen's stability and to avert adverse outcomes. During the years immediately following unification (1990–96), Yemen experienced a very high average rate of inflation, at 40%. Economic reforms brought the inflation rate down to only 5.4 percent in 1997, but high oil prices and cuts in the fuel subsidy in recent years have had a negative impact on the inflation rate, which has generally been on the rise despite some fluctuations. In 2004, efforts by the Central Bank of Yemen to tighten the money supply were offset by a weakening U. S. dollar to which the Yemeni riyal is linked in a managed float and by rising global commodity prices, resulting in an inflation rate of 12.5%. In 2018 the inflation rate was 33.65%. In July 2005, the government succumbed to public opposition and lowered the new general sales tax from 10 to 5 percent.

According to economists, Yemen's financial services sector is underdeveloped and dominated by the banking system. Yemen has no public stock exchange. The banking system consists of the Central Bank of Yemen, 15 commercial banks (nine private domestic banks, four of which are Islamic banks; four private foreign banks; and two state owned banks), and two specialized state owned development banks. The Central Bank of Yemen controls monetary policy and oversees the transfer of currencies abroad. It is the lender of last resort, exercises supervisory authority over commercial banks, and serves as a banker to the government. Since the end of 2005 and up to the end of 2010, Tadhamon International Islamic Bank has maintained the top spot of all banks in Yemen (both Commercial and Islamic) in terms of total assets, capital, and trade business. The largest commercial bank, the state owned Credit and Agricultural Cooperative Bank, and the majority state owned Yemen Bank for Reconstruction and Development are each currently being restructured with the goal of eventual privatization. Because of fiscal difficulties in both banks, Yemen's government adopted a plan to merge all three banks in 2004; the new publicly owned Development Bank will have a minimum capital of US$50 million. As of April 2011, this step has not yet materialized. The real growth rate in the non oil sector rose by 5.6% from 1995 to 1997.