Yemeni rial

History

In the 18th and 19th century, the riyal was traditionally associated with the Maria Theresa thaler, currency that was widely in use in Yemen owing to the Mocha coffee trade with the French, and a Yemeni request that its produce be paid with thalers.

As Yemen progressed, it developed its own legal currency. After the union between the North (the Yemen Arab Republic) and the South (the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen) in 1990, both the northern rial and the southern dinar remained legal tender during a transitional period, with 1 dinar exchanged for 26 rials. On 11 June 1996, the dinar was withdrawn from circulation. In 1993, the first coins were issued for the Republic of Yemen. The value of the Yemeni rial against the United States dollar dropped significantly compared to 12.01 rials per dollar in early the 1990s. Since the mid-1990s the Yemeni rial has been freely convertible. Though it dropped from YER 20 to approximately YER 215 against the U.S. dollar since then, the rial has been stable for several years. However, since 2010 the Central Bank of Yemen had to intervene several times, resulting in a serious decline of foreign reserves. By late 2013, the Economic Intelligence Unit expects reserves to decline to approximately 1.3 months of imports over the following years, despite information that Saudi Arabia would transfer $1 billion to the Yemeni Central Bank.

Coins

When Yemen unified, coins had been issued in North Yemen in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50 fils and 1 rial. The fils denominations have all disappeared from circulation. In 1993, new coins were introduced by the Central Bank of Yemen in denominations of 1 and 5 rials. These were followed by 10 rials coins in 1995 and 20 rials in 2004.