Ethiopia is planning to seek a credit rating to attract more foreign investment and to balance the decline in exports, Bloomberg reported.

The Ethiopian government will pick rating companies in the coming weeks to assess the level of risk involved with investing in the country, Finance Minister Sufian Ahmed said in an interview with Bloomberg yesterday in Addis Ababa.

Currently Ethiopia has no plans to access the international bond markets to finance its infrastructure development program, Sufian said.

“The intention is basically to show foreign direct investors where Ethiopia is in terms of those criteria,” Sufian said.

Foreign direct investment in Ethiopia is expected to reach 2.8 percent of GDP in the current fiscal year and average 4.5 percent in the “long run” if government policies promote the private sector, according to the IMF said.

Source: Bloomberg