Ethiopia plans to improve the volume of its export trade. According to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation, the plan is set to reduce the country’s USD 26 billion debt. The Ministry’s Communication Director, Ato Haji Ebsa, said the performance of the export trade was low and that there is a huge gap between its export performance and its external debt.

Based on the debt sustainability analysis, Ethiopian external debt was low risk from 2012 to 2015, moderate in 2016, but high in 2017 due to a low performance of the export trade.

In the 2017/18 fiscal year, USD 2.8 billion was gained from the export trade while the country imported USD 56 billion worth of goods. As a result, in order to address the trade deficit, the country plans to increase the quantity of export products. According to the director, the government is also extensively working in the construction of industrial parks aiming at increasing production and export trade. The director also added that a study had been finalized to implement public-private partnership policy with a loan of USD 1.7 billion from African Development Bank (ADB).

Meanwhile, according to Fana BC, Prime Minister Dr Abiy Ahmed held a meeting today, 16 August 2018, with the main stakeholders of the coffee industry. The purpose of the meeting was to address the main problems that were a hindrance to the sector and find ways to increase productivity, value addition export earnings.

Source: Ethiopian News Agency, Ethiopian Herald and Fana BC