almotamar.net - Dubai- the first session of the Yemeni-Gulf Business Forum was held the day before yesterday in cooperation with Shihab Centre for Financial Investments. The meeting is in preparation for the Investment Opportunities Exploration in Yemen Conference scheduled to convene in Sana'a on 8-10 next April under supervision of the Gulf Cooperation Council's general secretariat.

The opening speech was delivered by Dr Shihab al-Azazi, president of the forum and head of Shihab Centre for Financial Investments. He spoke about the idea of the forum and its goals and the projects proposed to be built in Yemen, support of Gulf Yemen cooperation and the necessity of heading for building joint projects with Yemen, activation of commercial and economic investment and requesting the Yemeni side to provide the support for the forum by providing it with all information necessary for establishment those projects on the ground.

On his part Dr Mohammed al-Shami the Dean of the Faculty of Business Management at Oman University of Technology and sickness said the investment climate in Yemen improved much and the proportion of taxation e3xempt now reaches to around 100% regarding productive inputs and also there is exempt from taxes for seven years for projects built in Yemeni main cities and for 12 years for projects constructed in other cities. Also, the Yemeni government offers plots of land free of charge for building big projects let alone facilitating investment through the one window so that the effort of the investor will not be dispersed in following up necessary licenses in various departments. He added that Yemen possession of the longest coastal line in the Arabian Peninsula; gives it an advantage in building projects of fish industry and ports.

The conference was concluded by calling for establishment of Islamic Federation International Bank and a holding company with one billion dollars capital in which Yemeni businessmen contribute by 20% and the recommendation for attemding the the conference on exploring investment opporetunities to be held in Yemen as well as holding periodic meeting for the foirum