Yemen - Economic sectors

Yemen's economic sectors reflect the small size of the economy. The 2 largest economic sectors are agriculture

and oil. Agriculture accounted for 20 percent of GDP in 1998, industry (including oil) for 42 percent, and services for 38 percent. Oil accounts for 85 percent of export earnings and is the largest source of government revenue. Two of the greatest obstacles to growth in all of Yemen's economic sectors are overstaffing in all of the state institutions and the sensitivity of the oil sector to changes in world oil prices. Since 1995, the government has targeted certain areas of economic growth— especially the manufacturing and construction sectors— to fuel growth and to diversify the sources of revenue by investing in both the oil and non-oil sectors. Growth in these sectors, however, has been rather sluggish.