The government of Ethiopia is undertaking an assessment to expedite the full or partial privatization of the state-owned Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Enterprise. Earlier, the government had announced that it would open the logistics sector for domestic and foreign companies.

The enterprise’s CEO, Ato Roba Megerssa, said, “We are under the preparation process, which means, we are conducting an assessment on our overall properties to know the amount of the resources that will be privatized. We are also identifying alliance fields that we can work with the private sector and preparing legal and cooperation packages for the privatization.”

The assessment is being undertaken with a view to identifying resources owned by the enterprise, cooperation areas, and amount of share to be auctioned.

A proposal about the ways of privatizing the Enterprise, the number of shares to be transferred and other technical issues on the privation process will be presented when the assessment is completed. According to Ato Roba, the sector’s progress will be accelerated and technological experiences and management skill will be transferred when the logistics sector is opened for the private sector.

According to the CEO, the enterprise is working together with the advisory council which was set up by the Prime Minister to supervise the privatization process.

Recently, the government declared that it would sell lesser portions of shares of enterprises engaged in aviation, telecommunications, logistics, railway, and sugar industries.

Source: Ethiopian News Agency