Almotamar.net - Parliamentary Trade and Industry Committee refused in a parliamentary sitting Sunday a government amendment of an article in the commercial law. The committee confined activity of non-Yemenis in commercial field without Yemeni partner to the trade of wheat, flour, sugar, rice and direct sale of wholesale merchants. That is unlike the government proposal that proposed possibility of non-Yemenis practice of trade in Yemen without the need for a Yemeni partner. The operative law puts the condition on any non-Yemeni investor to have a Yemeni partner in his trade in Yemen with a percentage no less than 51%.

The committee's stance was included in its report to the parliament today for holding a compromise between the government vision of the amendment and fear of representatives of the private sector from getting harmed from foreign competition that may lead to Yemeni capitals drain or departure from Yemen of large portion of hard currencies as well as the negative effect on small traders of Yemen.

On the other hand the two MPs Mansour al-Zandani and Mohammed al-Hazmi resigned from the Yemeni-Danish Friendship Society in protest of republication of the images offending the Prophet Mohammed in the Danish press.