GULF NEWS- - It will take about $40 billion over 10 years to ease Yemen's membership in the Gulf Cooperation Council, according to the country's foreign minister.

In the next five years, Yemen will contribute about 60 to 70 per cent of a $25 billion plan to qualify its economy to join the regional body. About $10 billion is expected to come from international donors.

"The deficit in the budget is around $10 billion, which means the Yemeni government is going to contribute about 60 to 70 per cent," Yemeni Foreign Minister, Abu Bakr Al Querbi told Gulf News in an exclusive interview in Sanaa.

"This is the budget for a five-year plan (2007 to 2011), which includes areas that will qualify the Yemeni economy for its merger with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economy, and this plan is based on an ambitious programme for achieving economic growth of around 7.4 per cent," the Minister said.

"Over the next 10 years the government is going to maintain and increase its contributions for the plan," Al Querbi said.

In November the UK will host a two-day conference that will bring together donors from the United States, Japan and the European Union.

The World Bank and the Yemeni government will co-chair the meetings which will be sponsored by the GCC countries.

"The conference will discuss the five-year plan that is going to be presented by the government of Yemen, and the strategy for achieving economic growth," the Foreign Minister said.

He said the conference would focus on two things: Yemen's ambitious economic growth and the fact it has just come out from one of the most successful democratic elections in the region.

The official denied that the nuclear activity developments in Iran had any effect on Yemen joining the GCC. He said he wanted his region, and the Middle East as a whole, to be free from weapons of mass destruction, which meant that Israel should also dismantle its nuclear weapons.

Within the 10-year plan for qualifying Yemen's economy for a complete merger with the GCC, Sanaa will also host an international conference in February to explore investment opportunities in the country. He said his government was focusing more on permanent investors rather than the "hit and run" ones.

Yemen is also hoping to meet the conditions of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), which last year refused to provide assistance because of shortcomings in Yemen's reform indices.

Democratisation and freedom is also one of the indices, so the results of the recent elections will certainly reflect positively on Yemen, Al Querbi said.