Addis Ababa, 17 March 2015 (WIC) – When looking for opportunities to invest in sub-Saharan Africa, there are few better places than Ethiopia, the East African Business Week reported.

The country enjoys a unique location at the crossroads between Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

The investment law protects private property, but apart from this basic requisite for cultivating business confidence, there are other clear cut guarantees.

A foreign investor has the right to make the following remittances out of Ethiopia in convertible foreign currency at prevailing rate of exchange.

The other crucial thing that ensures investors’ capital is safe is that Ethiopia is a member of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).

This is the World Bank Group affiliate that covers non-commercial risks in signatory countries.

Ethiopia also recognizes all the provisions of the World Intellectual Property Organization, besides having several bilateral agreements with countries that protect investors’ portfolio.

Ethiopia may well be also considered as a country with the lowest levels of crime and corruption among the least developed countries.

The Federal Government has formulated the five year Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) to carry forward the important strategic directions to maintaining a fast growing economy, projected to grow at average rate of 11.2% annually.

Ethiopia’s economy is still young with vast untapped resources and a range of investment opportunities. The country has comparative advantages in agriculture, agro-processing, leather and leather products and textiles and garments.

However, to ensure an ordered development, the Council of Ministers regulations specify the areas of investment open for foreign investors.

Apart from the areas already mentioned, others with the most promising potential include sugar, chemical and pharmaceutical products, tourism, mining and hydro-power.

Ethiopia’s economy is based on agriculture, which accounts in 2012/13 for about 42.9% of the Gross Domestic (GDP), 90% of foreign currency earnings and 85% of employment.

Generally, the overall economic growth of the country has been highly associated with the performance of the agriculture sector.

Coffee is a critical commodity to the economy. It earned $745.1 million during financial year 2012/13. Other notable products during the same year were gold ($584.4 million); oilseeds ($437.1 million); khat ($270.6 million); live animals ($160 million); leather and leather products ($120.6 million); meat and related products ($74.1 million); fruits and vegetable ($43.7 million).

The industrial sector, which mainly comprises of small and medium enterprises accounted for about 12.4% of GDP in 2012/13. At 45.2% contribution is the growing service sector which is made up of a wide range of enterprises. An investor will find no problem in being interested, although the difficulty will come in choosing exactly where to put their money.

In order to improve the export sector, the Federal Government set up the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX). This is a marketplace where buyers and sellers come together to trade, assured of quality, delivery and payment. ECX guarantees an end-to-end system that is efficient and fair to all.

During 2012/13, total exports amounted to $3.1 billion. However, there is a huge scope for higher export receipts once a steady diversification from coffee is done through new investment in other areas of the economy.

The Industrial Development Strategy focuses on export manufacturing with priority given to textile and garments, leather and leather products, agro-processing and small and micro-enterprises.

Due to the investment-friendly environment created in the country, the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) has been increasing over the last 21 years.

Out of the total investment projects licensed between 1992 and 2012, FDI’s share is about 15.8%.

However, the overall trend of investment in 2012, both in terms of projects and capital, showed a definite increase and this has not change this then.

Ethiopia remains an untapped and unexploited market for investors. A list of the countries that are already involved in the country reflects this attraction. These investors are from China, India, Sudan, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the United States, United Kingdom, Israel and Canada.

Addis Ababa, 18 March 2015 (WIC) – Foreign Affairs State Minister, Ambassador Berhane Gebrechristos met with Seán Sherlock, TD, the Irish Minister of State for Development, Trade Promotion and North-South Cooperation on Monday (March 16), to discuss a range of mutually important issues.

Ambassador Berhane said Ethiopia attached great importance to its relations with Ireland. Cooperation between the two countries was growing in areas in which where Ethiopia was working to reduce poverty and achieve the targets set in the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP).

Ambassador Berhane said that as Ethiopia is preparing to implement GTP II, focusing on agro processing and manufacturing, Irish experience in the agricultural sector would be an inspiration; the two countries were also working closely on climate change and green energy.

Ambassador Berhane also noted Ethiopia was working hard for the resolution of regional interstate conflicts and had committed itself to “Silencing the guns by 2020”, a decision adopted by the last AU summit.

He said Europe could play an innovative role to increase its engagement with Africa. Minister Sherlock said his visit to Africa, and especially to Ethiopia at the time of the celebration of St Patrick, was indicative of the conviction of his Government of the importance of enhancing trade links, investment and other important issues.

He said he would be looking at the development of the Double Taxation Agreement between Ireland and Ethiopia, as well as the bilateral Air Transport Agreement signed on his last visit to Ethiopia, in November last year, when he had accompanied Irish President Higgins.

Sherlock described the air transport agreement as a major milestone in relations between the two countries and one which paved the way for a new Ethiopian Airlines route.

He said “direct flights between Dublin and Addis Ababa, due to start from June, there is huge potential for boosting trade, investment and tourism between Ireland and Ethiopia.”

Sherlock said his Government wanted to take advantage of the opportunities in Africa, and Ethiopia would be a key player in this regard, as the country is expected to be among the 20 fastest growing economies in the world this year. There was great potential for Irish companies looking for mutually-beneficial investment opportunities.
The Minister underlined that Ireland’s long term development assistance to Ethiopia wasone of the strongest cooperation relationships in Europe.

Ethiopia, he said, was one of Ireland’s Key Partner Countries, and he expressed his satisfaction over the growth Ethiopia has registered over the last decade or so.

He said Ireland would support Ethiopia in the implementation of the GTP II, and added that the 20-year roadmap for Irish-Ethiopian relations would heighten the cooperation between “equals” where the private sector would be an active player and Ireland would support Ethiopia’s goals in post-2015 sustainable development. (MoFA

Addis Ababa, 14 March 2015 (WIC) – Propelled by a 10.9% average annual growth rate since 2000, Ethiopia is attempting a major economic transformation to become a hydro-electric powerhouse and a regional airport hub. Of numerous infrastructure projects currently being constructed or planned for the near future, two in particular stand out: the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), and a huge new international airport outside of the capital Addis Ababa that will be as big as London’s Heathrow.

The GERD’s foundation stone was set in 2011, and when completed in 2017 it will be Africa’s largest hydropower structure, producing 6GW of electricity from the Blue Nile River. Besides covering Ethiopia’s growing domestic demand, the World Bank estimates that the GERD and other hydroelectric projects could earn the country $1 billion per year in electricity exports. On March 6 the country reached an agreement on principles for peaceful sharing of the Nile River with Sudan and Egypt, seeking to allay its downstream neighbors’ concerns over the GERD. The countries have a formal international agreement dating to 1959 that governs the Nile’s water allocations, and a joint technical committee was formed in 2014 to analyze the GERD’s effects on water security for Sudan and Egypt. However, the dam is a national priority for Ethiopia, and it is fast becoming a reality, so the downstream countries really have no choice but to cooperate and try to ensure their future water flows through friendly diplomacy.

The most innovative aspect of the dam is its financing, which is almost entirely Ethiopian. The $4.8 billion price tag will be met by bond offerings to Ethiopians, private companies, and even neighboring countries like Djibouti, as well as taxes (through a computerized system that makes evasion difficult). Additionally, the state-owned Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation is investing its own revenue and the money it is borrowing from state-owned banks to finance the GERD. It is a symbol of pride that the country does not have to go begging foreign donors to fund the GERD, and other developing countries may emulate the model if it succeeds.

Ethiopia also has big aspirations for its future as an air hub. Within the past decade, passengers at Addis Ababa’s Bole international airport surged from under a million per year to 7 million, just over its nominal capacity. Passenger numbers are expected to continue increasing by 18% a year. In September 2014, China Communication Construction Company began work on a $300 million contract to expand the airport’s capacity to handle 20 million passengers. The previous growth had exceeded all expectations, so the expansion (set for completion in 2018) should serve the country for the next 15 years, according to the project manager.

Separately, the government is narrowing down sites to build a mega-airport with a 70 million passenger capacity at a cost of $2.5- 3 billion. After the site is finalized in the next few months, it will take an estimated eight years to design, finance, and build the airport. With an exclusive highway that links it to Addis Ababa, the mega-hub is expected to serve the country for 100 years, and will be a main gateway to Africa. “A number of international financial institutions have already shown interest” in extending loans for the project, which will be awarded to a company in a “vendor financing scheme,” an official told the Reporter.

Ethiopia still has one of the world’s lowest per-capita income rates, but its impressive economic growth since 2000 led to a 33% decrease in the number of people living in poverty. (Blouin News Blogs)

Ethiopia has a proud and long history extending to the known beginnings of humankind. The fossils of our species’ earliest known ancestor was found in the Danakil Depression in north-east Ethiopia. The Axumite Kingdom was one of the great civilizations of the ancient world and has left behind the mystery of the great stelae found at Axum. In the late Middle Ages great religious civilizations flourished in many parts of the country, particularly at Lalibela where churches hewn out of massive monolithic rock testify not only to great faith but also to great architectural skills. And in the former capital of Gondar many magnificent castles speak of the same legacy.

All these would be enough to make Ethiopia a fascinating place to visit and travel through, but Ethiopia has so much more to offer. Here you can find virtually all the faces of African culture and its landscapes and much of its wildlife. You can travel through high meadow lands reminiscent of Europe or trek across even higher moorlands – in the Simien and Bale mountains – and see unique forms of Afro-Alpine plants, which here grow to an astonishing size. You can explore great rivers and lakes including Lake Tana, the source of the majestic Blue Nile whose valley is one of the world’s greatest, longest and deepest gorges. You can discover the savannas and wetlands of our western region and visit the far south, which teems with wildlife and is home to fascinating ancient cultures. In the great Rift Valley a necklace of beautiful lakes lies beneath the splendid panorama of the Bale Mountains. And in the east, the walled city of Harar speaks of other old civilizations and great faiths, such as Islam. Many kilometers north of there lies the Danakil Depression, one of the world’s most inhospitable but nonetheless dramatic landscapes which is also one of the hottest places on earth. Yet it is home to proud and independent Ethiopian people who have learned to live with their environment, even to benefit from it. Wherever you go on your journey through Ethiopia, you will find many things to enjoy and marvel over, and you can at all times be sure of the warm hospitality of the Ethiopian people.

Seven of Ethiopia’s magnificent historical sites are included in the world cultural heritage list: The Simien National Park, the Rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, the Castles of Gondar and other monuments of Gondar Style, the lower Valley of the Awash paleontological and prehistorical sites, Tiya proto- historical and archeological sites, Axum historical and archeologic, valley of the Omo
paleontological and prehistoric sites.
The Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia extends its warm welcome and wholehearted support to visitors interested in our fabulous tourist attractions and to the investors needed as partners in the further development of our tourism resources.

Addis Ababa, 12 March 2015 (WIC) – South Sudanese warring parties, who failed to reach agreement on power sharing ratio, will resume peace talks in the coming month of April, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced.

The warring parties, failed to reach agreement by the deadline, 5 March, will continue the negotiations, Spokesperson Tewolde Mulugeta told reporters during a weekly briefing.

Since the two sides failed to reach agreement during the final session of the IGAD led peace talk held in Addis Ababa from3rd to 6th March, the upcoming talks would involve other stakeholders including African and international community, he said.

The two parties will continue their talks with the presence of representatives from the African Union, United Nations Security Council, and governments of US, British and Norway, Tewolde said.

President Salva Kiir and his rival Rick Machar didn’t agree on the power sharing ratio, since both parties want the highest position for themselves.

Though the two parties agreed on 1st February this year to reach agreement no later than 5th March, in the final session of the negotiation, but they failed to do so.

The parties were negotiating on critical agendas, including the structure of the executive of the transitional government of national unity and the power sharing ratios.

In his speech to the people of South Sudan following the conclusion of the talks without results, Ethiopian Prime Minister and IGAD Chair HaileMariam Desalegn condemned both sides for not considering the safety and wellbeing of their people, “rather than only reiterating old positions”.

He said the refusal by both sides to compromise differences would prolong suffering of the people of South Sudan saying it is unacceptable both “morally and politically.”

The other agenda the Spokesperson raised was the issues of the tripartite national committee formed to hire the consultant firm for the recommended additional researches to be conducted on the Ethiopian Dam.

The water ministers of the three countries, Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, reached on a political consensus during their meeting last Friday in Khartum, Sudan, he said.

According to Tewolde, the national committees of the three countries have already selected the firm that will consult the researches.

According to ENA, the firm will be publicized and contract agreement would be signed soon, he added.

Addis Ababa, 8 March 2015 (WIC) - According to the annual “Wealth Report” released by global real estate consultancy Knight Frank on March 5, Ethiopia's capital is among four cities in the world dubbed as "Cities of the Future", based on the wealth creation opportunities they will present in the future.

The report says, "The cities featured on this spread are not those about to be listed among the world’s top 10 or even top 20 most important cities. Indeed, none of them yet boasts any billionaire residents, according to data from Wealth Insight, but their Hgh-Net-Worth Individual HNWI (millionaire) and UHNWI (Ultra High Net Worth Individuals) populations are rising, and they are locations whose influence we believe is growing strongly at a regional level. Even if they are unlikely to be on the second-home list of most UHNWIs, they should certainly be on their radars in terms of the wealth creation opportunities they will present.

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February 26, 2015 (WIC) – Ethiopia is delivering impressive progress towards the Millennium Development Goals meaning the needs of the country are changing as it experiences strong economic growth and increasing domestic revenue.

Recognizing Ethiopia’s growing success, the UK will now evolve its approach by transitioning support towards economic development to help generate jobs, income and growth that will enable self-sufficiency and ultimately end poverty.

This will go alongside additional funding for specific health, education and water programmes – where impressive results are already being delivered – resourced by ending support for the Promotion of Basic Services programme.

The UK remains firmly committed to poverty reduction in Ethiopia. This transition in approach does not affect the amount of aid DFID will provide to Ethiopia in 2015/16. (gov.uk)

Addis Ababa, 24 February 2015 (WIC) – Considering proper utilization of funds extended to support projects by the Ethiopian government, the European Union has decided to increase amount of financial assistance.

The EU has decided to increase its yearly support to 200 million Euros (one billion Euros for the coming five years) starting from this year, considering the proper utilization of assistance during the last period, Head of EU Delegation to Ethiopia, Chantal Hebberecht told ENA.

According to her, the EU has been monitoring the utilization of funds allocated for specific projects by Ethiopia and it confirmed that the funds have been spent for the intended purposes.

EU has confirmed that the support allocated for projects in natural conservation, agriculture, education and health has been spent properly, she added.

In addition to the proper utilization of funds, the nation’s effort to alleviate poverty is also another reason for EU to increase its support to Ethiopia.

She noted that Ethiopia has been undertaking successful activities regarding poverty alleviation, reducing child and maternal deaths, realize universal access to primary education, and control malaria, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Allocating 70 percent of its budget to education, infrastructure, health institutions and poverty alleviation projects, helped Ethiopia achieve the MDGs, he added.

Germany, France, UK and Italy are among the leading countries in extending development assistance to Ethiopia.

EU, among the biggest development partners of Ethiopia, is also the destination for 30 percent of Ethiopia’s coffee, leather, horticultural and floricultural exports.

UK, Sweden, Germany and Netherlands are among the leading foreign direct investment sources for the country, with more than 300 projects with a combined capital of 60 billon US dollars.

Twenty of the total 28 members of the EU have embassies in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. (ENA

Addis Ababa, 21 February 2015 (WIC) -The Ethio-Germany relationship is being consolidated by people-to-people ties beyond the diplomatic relations, according to Germany’s Ambassador to Ethiopia.

Ambassador Joachim Schmidt told ENA that the political, diplomatic, economic and social cooperation of the two countries has reached high level.

Schmidt indicated that the relation is strengthened by people-to-people ties and is being built on solid foundation.

The relationship of the peoples of the two countries is deep and multifaceted when compared to other countries, he added.

He said high-level official visits of the two governments, the relationship of sister cities and development cooperations have played a significant role in bringing the peoples of the two nations closer.

Germany is the fifth largest destination for Ethiopian export, the ambassador said, adding that the annual trade volume of the two countries has jumped over 200 million Euros.

Schmidt further indicated that of the stated amount 84 million is Ethiopia’s share and the remaining balance that of Germany.

Ethiopia exports agricultural products, including coffee and textiles to German markets, while it imports pharmaceuticals, medicines and machinery, among others, it was learned.

Some 35 German companies are reportedly engaged in Ethiopia’s floricultural, logistics, transport and pharmaceutical sectors.

Ambassador Schmidt explained that the over 50-years Ethio-German development cooperation focuses on the provision of primary education, technical and vocational training, agriculture and biodiversity.

Starting from 2009, Germany has closely supported Ethiopia’s green economy policy and supported the revival of 180,000 hectares of land that benefits over 194,000 farmers, he said.

It was stated that the countries have strong cooperation in preventing drought, fighting climate change and terrorism.

Ambassador Schmidt said Germany has a great admiration for the role Ethiopia has been playing in ensuring peace and stability in Somalia and South Sudan, and particularly in Darfur and Abiye.

He also appreciated Ethiopia’s efforts in hosting and protecting displaced citizens of neighboring countries.

According to ENA, Ethiopia and Germany began diplomatic relations in 1905.