“Addis Ababa City Administration is diligently attracting huge investments that can create vast jobs and draw great amount of hard currency; the investments can efficiently be managed on limited plots of land,” said Abdulfeta Yesuf, Commissioner for the City’s Investment Commission when approached by Ethiopian Press Agency.
Cognizant to the impact of investment for a nation’s economic growth, the nation is working vigorously emphasizing the sector. The effort is highly beneficial especially in creating job, multiplying hard currency earning and technology and knowledge transfer.
Ethiopia as a developing nation has also been paying great attention to the sector. All states and city administrations are running to attract investors through providing various incentives.
Regardless of instability in the country in the last three years, Addis Ababa relatively stayed stable and become center of interest for investors. Therefore, the city administration has been motivating investors through means of various incentives and the city’s convenient environment. As a result, the city’s investment inflow has tangibly increased in the past years and the city is achieving its GTP II target in advance, said Commissioner Abdulfeta Yesuf.
He added that though shortage of land has become bottleneck to the city’s investment, it has been working by selecting investment sectors that create vast job and draw high foreign currency on a limited plot of land. Investors’ priority choice is peaceful and stabled environment. In this regard, Addis Ababa comes at the top for its sustained peace and stability in addition to being economic and political center and preferred by many investors.
The commission has planned to increase the number of investors in GTP II from 40 thousands to 50 thousands. “More than 2,500 investors have received investment licenses only during the past fiscal year and up to now, about 40 thousand investors have been licensed and engaged into business. This, in general, indicates that the investment inflow is going over our plan,” said Abdulfeta.
The performance has limitation in the intended sector as the investment inflow requires wide land provision. Addis Ababa, on the contrary, is known for its great shortage of land. To get rid of this problem, according to the commissioner, the city would prefer investment that can accommodate many workers, increase and save foreign currency, bring technological advancement and be applied on limited land.
“Our focus areas are mainly hotel and tourism sectors. Manufacturing sector that consumes limited area of land can also be entertained. For instance, investments that produce high forex drawing products by using ICT can be licensed in Addis Ababa,” he added.
Investment is the highly incentivized sector. Investors who have been engaged in hotel and tourism can import manufacturing materials tax free, own land with allocation instead of lease and acquire loan with low interest and this is applied basically with the cost of public’s income aiming at the public’s benefit will be actualized through the growing and expansion of the investment.
The basic problem to be solved through expansion of investment is minimizing number of job seekers; hence, investments that create vast job options are given priority during this fiscal year. In this regard, over 17,000 jobs were created during the past fiscal year and in this year, there is an opportunity to create more jobs, according to the commissioner.
With regard to using its investment potential, according to Abdulfeta, the city is applying its maximum effort. The city’s investment commission is among the most efficient one in providing agile service next to Documents Authentication and Registration Agency and this is witnessed by customers’ feedback. Service delivery standard is already set but in practice, the services are provided in less time than the standard.
Efficient service provision procedures are set for the current fiscal year and among these, one is online licensing system. This enables the investors obtain investment licenses from where they are so that they can save their time and energy.
“Moreover, we perform research based investment. We have to facilitate the process for those who have already invested in the way they become successful up to the end and this should be supported by knowledge,” said the commissioner. Adding, he said that the city is working jointly with different universities especially with Kotebe Metropolitan University. As per this, they are conducting a research focusing on the city’s investment opportunities and challenges as well as priority investments. The research can be basis for modernized process.
In addition to hotels and tourism, the city administration works focusing on problem solving investments like recycling dry waste. Since Addis Ababa is a city that produces great amount of dirt, an investment that prepares the dirt for reuse is given special attention.
This investment has dual benefit. On one hand, it contributes a great deal for the beatification of the city as it is the capital of Ethiopia and Africa and a city that hosts conferences as well as many tourists. On the other hand, the processes of recycling from collecting the dirt up to production and supplying stage create vast job opportunity, he noted.
Despite this, the manufacturing sector will be underway with special emphasis. Particularly, investments that use industry products as input would be given extra attention. Thus, creating industry-industry linkage will be prioritized aiming at enabling them to feed each other.
The Ethiopian Herald September 24, 2019
BY BACHA ZEWDIE
