(AFP) - Yemen is to ask donors for 10 billion dollars in aid over five years to help prepare the impoverished republic for membership of the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council, a government minister said in comments published on Monday.


Planning Minister Abdel Karim Al Arhabi told the London-based Arabic-language daily Al Hayat that the appeal would be made at a donors� conference in the British capital on November 15-16.

Arhabi said a total investment of 25 billion dollars would be needed in the 2006-2010 plan to begin bringing Yemen up to the level of the six pro-Western oil states currently in the GCC but that 15 billion would be provided from domestic sources.

The minister is currently on a tour of Europe and North America to drum up support from donors ahead of the London conference, which is being jointly sponsored by the World Bank and the GCC, the Saudi-owned daily said.

Further massive investment will be needed under a second five-year plan before Yemen�s infrastructure begins to approach GCC levels.

Formed in 1981 in the midst of the Iran-Iraq war, the bloc currently consists of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Yemen, which has long had ambitions to join the wealthy bloc in a bid to break out of chronic poverty, has had observer status in the bloc�s forums for education, social affairs, health and sport since December 2001.