Abstract

Yemen lacks an industrial and productive base in the field of manufacturing locally-originated building materials, which has led to the wide opening of the importation door. This importation has contributed to neglecting the use of significant natural resources in building the national economy and sidelining important local expertise in utilizing available high-quality local building materials. These materials are vital for life, suiting the climatic, environmental, and human living conditions in Yemen. Moreover, it has opened broad avenues for importing materials that do not fit the climatic and environmental conditions, causing complex economic problems that harm the national economy through the waste of national resources and liquidity. This study focuses on potential investment opportunities in the industry of local building materials suited to the environmental and climatic conditions. Among the most important investment opportunities is the use of clay soil in the manufacturing of building materials: extraction and production of lime sand bricks and clay sand bricks, production of cement-stabilized compressed bricks, and rammed earth walls, and the manufacture of green pozzolanic concrete. There are studies, practical experiments, and scientific research that have proven the feasibility of manufacturing these materials, which have shown high-quality results for the intended products. The state should facilitate investment procedures and enact laws and legislations that enable the exploitation of natural resources to establish a productive base that can accommodate the rapid movement of construction and contracting and reconstruction due to wars and conflicts.