Chairman Mustafa Nasr

The chairman of Yemen's Studies and Economic Media Center, Mustafa Nasr, said that the Yemeni economy suffered from a major collapse, due to the ongoing war in the country, starting from the control of Houthi group on the capital, Sana'a, to the rest of the provinces, which led to the withdrawal of international organizations and the ambassadors of the world's countries from Yemen.

Nasr added, in an exclusive interview with Arabs Today, that the withdrawal was the first blow to the Yemeni economy, followed by stopping of the export of oil, which represents a large proportion of the state budget, then a terrible deterioration in all economic sectors has occurred, which led to a decline in the growth rate reached to 40%.

He also pointed out that during 2016, a relative improvement was occurred in some provinces controlled by the government, such as Hadramout, Marib and Aden, but also this improvement is still negative, which means that the country is in a state of economic collapse, and that the improvement did not reach the zero level.

Nasr pointed out that there are practices to destroy the elements of the economy, like looting of all revenues of the state, the depletion of cash reserves of the currency of the central bank, and destroy all institutional work, including the banking sector.

He also expressed his wishes for more improvement during 2017 and 2018, at least in the liberated provinces, and the return of delivering of salaries.