International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Managing Director, Ms. Christine Lagarde, is set to visit Ethiopia by the next Friday. The visit by the IMF official is going to be the first time the head of the organization visits the Horn of Africa nation.
The International Monetary fund issued a statement praising the macroeconomic and general development performance of 
Ethiopia in the last year after carrying out the recent Article IV Consultation.
The IMF delegation lead by Michael Antingi-Ego announced that the execution of tight monetary policies by the central bank including efforts to contracting the money supply and sterilizing foreign exchange has contributed to decelerating the rate of inflation significantly.
The report cited the National Bank’s initiative to reduce the gross foreign exchange reserves to cover less than two months of imports from the considerably high reserves in the last fiscal year which had been an inflationary principle.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted lower economic growth at 6 percent for Ethiopia in the 2011/12 fiscal year. Led by Mr. Paul Mathieu the IMF mission made the prediction at the conclusion of its 12-day discussions for the 2011 Article IV Consultation in Addis Ababa on May 30.
The mission met with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Sufian Ahmed, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Teklewold Atnafu, Governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), other senior officials, and representatives of the private sector, the international community, and civil society.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised Ethiopia's net international reserves target to help the country meet upcoming foreign currency payments. This follows Ethiopia’s USD 3.4 billion, four-year financing deal secured with the IMF in July, contingent on major economic reforms, including the recent flotation of the birr currency.
The International Monetary Fund announced that it may be possible to reduce inflation to single digits in Ethiopia by the end of this financial year.
The government has been following a tight and consistent monetary policy to force inflation down to single digits and IMF supports the tightening of federal government monetary and fiscal policies said Jan Mikkelsen, IMF Resident Representative.
The public sector led development strategy of Ethiopia is encouraging although it may have a negative impact on the private sector according to Mikkelsen.
