For a country with a population of over 80 million with Africa’s fifth largest economy, Ethiopia has for long been inward looking in issues of business. This appears to be showing some signs of change. The latest edition of the New African Magazine has a feature story on Ethiopia…and calls the country “A RISING GIANT” citing its large population and resource base as well as recent economic growth record. Perhaps, the country is ready to increasingly play an economic role to match its current diplomatic leadership?
2010 may in fact be the turnaround point. The Economist Magazine identified Ethiopia as the fifth fastest growing economy in the world this year and added that by the end of the year, Ethiopia would possibly be the largest economy in East Africa, overtaking Kenya in absolute terms. And the news stories coming out of Ethiopia of recent are turning Pan-African as well.
Over the past few months, Ethiopian business watchers have been keeping a close eye on the expansion plans of the national flag carrier, Ethiopian Airlines. The Airlines, which has dozens of aircraft worth billions of dollars on order from both Boeing and Airbus, has been managing the newly launched ASKY Airlines based in Lome. The new airline and base allows Ethiopian the flexibility of a West African base from which it can continue to dominate the African skies.
This week, we learned about the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation’s adventures in West Africa where the state owned enterprise won a contract to manage the recently constructed Bumbuna Hydroelectric Project (BHP) in Sierra Leone by the West African country’s National Power Authority (NPA). EEPCO which has over 50 years will be running the 50MW plant constructed by Salini Construction for the next 20 years.
Next week, the Pan-African Chamber of Commerce will sign an agreement with the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to open up its head office in Addis Ababa. The organization, which aims to boost inter-African trade, was first set up in Cairo a few years ago. Addis Ababa beat Tripoli for the honor even after the later offered to build thee headquarters of the new organization for FREE.
In another display of leadership, the young Ethiopia Commodity Exchange has organized a meeting of representatives from different commodity exchanges all over Africa this week. The gathering, with representatives from Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania, Sudan, Zimbabwe, India, and South Africa, are expected to set up an African Commodity Exchanges Association with Addis Ababa most likely to serve as the host city.
It seems that in 2010, Ethiopia will start to take its first few tentative steps towards stretching its hand out to neighboring countries and further afar in Africa. While this is in fact encouraging, it must be said that none of these exciting initiatives are led by the Ethiopian private sector. A true sign of success on the African sphere and assurance of sustainability can only be realized if and when the private sector grows stronger and confident enough to begin to look beyond our borders.Read more blogs by clicking here or by going to our E.I Blog