Ethiopia's Economy Up over 8 Percent for Past Fiscal Year

Ethiopian Minister of Planning and Development Fitsum Assefa said that building on an 8.1 percent economic growth in the last fiscal year, the East African country expects "double-digit economic growth" in the current fiscal year, supported by the recent move to implement comprehensive macroeconomic reform, the state-run Ethiopian News Agency reported.

Assefa said the agricultural and industrial sectors have contributed significantly to the country's overall economic growth, as the first phase of Ethiopia's home-grown economic reform is paying particular attention to these sectors.

Assefa singled out the country's industry sector, which has grown by 9.2 percent, with big and medium manufacturing industries registering a 10.2 percent growth.

She attributed the growth of the industrial sector mainly to the restarting of hundreds of factories that had stopped operations due to the recent conflicts in the country. She also highlighted the role of new factories that started operations during the last fiscal year.

Noting that the service sector grew by 7.7 percent during the reported period, Assefa mainly attributed this growth to successes in the country's tourism sector, as the flow of foreign tourists rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic.

She further highlighted the positive performance of major national enterprises, such as Ethiopian Airlines and Ethio Telecom, which "played a big role in the service sector growth last fiscal year."

Meanwhile, Assefa stated that there are indications that Ethiopia's economic growth will return to double-digit growth.

She said the country is addressing bottlenecks in the construction sector, such as access to cement and the operationalization of new industries.

Ethiopia, with about 132 million people, is the second-most populous nation in Africa after Nigeria and one of the fastest-growing economies on the continent. Its strong growth rate builds on a longer-term growth record over the past 15 years, when the country's economy grew at an average of nearly 10 percent per year, one of the highest rates in the world.

Despite consistently high economic growth over the past decade, the East African country remains among the poorest, according to the World Bank. Ethiopia aims to reach lower-middle-income status by 2025.

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