The Youth movement is planning to hold demonstrations in the capital, Sana’a, and the southern city of Taizz on Monday.
Youth activists say the deals must be canceled since corrupt profiteers are the only ones benefiting from them while the Yemeni nation must enjoy the wealth from the country’s exploitation of its natural resources.
The calls for cancellation of gas deals with France and South Korea come days after a senior Yemeni transport ministry official said that the ministry has begun contacts with Dubai government-owned port operator DP World on cancelling a contract to manage Aden port.
"The board of Gulf of Aden Ports Corp decided to cancel the agreement with DP World. There are contacts with DP World to complete the process of cancellation amicably," the official, who declined to be named, told Reuters last week.
Yemen signed a contract with DP World in 2008 to develop and run the port, whose strategic location at the mouth of the Red Sea once made it a vital stop for ships bound for the Suez Canal. The agreement stipulates $220 million of investment to develop the port.
Early this year Yemeni Transport Minister Waed Abdullah Bathib said that DP World had missed a target of raising container capacity to 900,000 20-foot equivalent container units by the end of 2011, and had failed to build and provide infrastructure as specified in the 2008 agreement.
