President Saleh welcomes German investments

BERLIN, Feb. 29 (Saba)- President Ali Abdullah Saleh welcomed German investments in Yemen in fields of tourism, health and fish, affirming the importance of establishing housing projects for low income people. In his lecture at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Berlin, President Saleh said that Yemen is oil, mineral and gas wealthy, pointing that the country would export gas by the end of 2008 in cooperation with the French company Total in a $3 billion project, “We have gas reserves about 17 trillion cubic meters”, added Saleh. On the other hand, President Saleh said that his country had started a dialogue with youths belong to al-Qaeda and al-Jihad “although we faced protests from America and some friendly countries, where they prefer to deal such youths with swords and violence”, said Saleh, affirming that Yemen achieved a good results during the dialogue. President Saleh added that the government had provided job opportunities for the youths suspected al-Qaeda to reduce the exploitation of extremist groups and “we took security procedures against whom didn’t convince”. SA/YA Saba