“Document” Dhamar authorities restrict block factories, require license for each sale
Yemen
Yamanat – Special
The Transportation and Public Works Office in central Yemen’s Dhamar governorate has issued a circular requiring brick kilns and laboratories not to sell their products unless they have ensured that the buyer has obtained an official building permit.
The move has sparked angry reactions from the community, as the Department of Public Works sees it as a necessary regulatory measure, but activists see it as an unwarranted restriction on the private sector.
According to the document, published on July 12, 2025 and addressed to blockade factory owners, the circular aims to “prevent attacks on streets and public reserves, preserve neighborhood unit plans and limit the spread of random construction.”
Activists and investors in the construction materials sector criticized; Circular from the Public Works Bureau, considering that this is an unusual precedent to entrust factories with supervisory functions that are not within their competence, emphasizing that the task of controlling violations falls to official authorities and not to investment institutions that sell consumer goods.
Observers say the directive could open the door to imposing fees or fines on factories under the pretext of selling to those without a license, which constitutes an additional financial burden in an economic environment suffering from an unprecedented recession.
This circular places industrialists between the rock of the law and the hard place of the market, while they find themselves forced to play an executive role for which they do not have the tools, at a time when investors are complaining about blackmail and restrictions targeting them, and this blackmail is more than enough for a lot of capital to leave the country.
Yemen