“Building Ethiopia’s image, attracting businesses, bringing technology are my priorities!”

In today’s edition of In the Sphere of Diplomacy column, Ambassador Professor Admasu Tsegaye, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Indonesia, Singapore, Malasiya and ASEAN had a stay with The Ethiopian Herald. Prof. Dr. Admassu Tsegaye had sixteen- year experience in the Addis Ababa and Hawassa universities in the post of academic management .He were president of both institutions. He has also over 20 years of research experience. He shared to Herald his views starting from building the image of Ethiopia, furthering the business and economic diplomacy and political and international partnerships with these countries. Excerpts!

EH: Ambassador, thank you for your interest to talk to The Ethiopian Herald. You came from Jinka to visit relatives and to mark the Ethiopian New Year. Where have you been assigned to represent your country as an Ambassador?

Ambassador Admasu Tsegaye (Prof.): I am serving my country in the Asean countries as an Ambassador seated Jakarta, Indonesia. It is really a great opportunity for me to change the image of Ethiopia in the region for the better. I am also accredited to the countries of Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Pakistan and some Islands in India.

The focus of my country Ethiopia and I is strengthening business diplomacy. I had been rendering rich academic expertise while in Addis Ababa and Hawassa Universities. I had also established large networks of partnership in the education sector.

I had been working with several foreign institutions and organizations. Furthermore, I had executed several international and regional projects. Therefore, I am not foreign to working with international organizations. It is simple for me to create relationships, to start discussions and to convince people of different organizations using my experience.

There are many big companies in Indonesia and in other East Asian countries such as Singapore and Malaysia. Hence, I am working to let them hop on my connection. Utilizing every favorable opportunity I try to explain about the great business opportunities in Ethiopia.

My previous experience is helping me to easily communicate with pertinent bodies. I often brief investors about the business climate in Ethiopia so that they could be lured by the potential areas of engagement in Ethiopia.

The investment incentives and packages in Ethiopia have to be clear in order for the businessmen to come and start business here.

The other area that I am aggressively working at is strengthening link with East Asian countries. The image of Africa in general and Ethiopia in particular is not good in these countries. The embassy is striving to portray the exact image of Ethiopia to these communities. To this end, the Ethiopian Embassy in Jakarta is working in close connection with the universities and high schools in order to improve the perception of Ethiopia and Africa especially in the young generation.

In addition to this, I am working with the media people on how to change the image of Ethiopia.

Furthermore, the Ethiopian Airlines has started flying to Jakarta trice a week. Launching this flight was not an easy task. We had been working hard to the maximum level best to secure the flight license from the Indonesian government and to see this flight commenced.

Then after this, using the Ethiopian Airlines Jakarta destination, tourists should come to Ethiopia, the number of passengers using the Ethiopian service should increase. Apart from Ethiopia, the Ethiopian mission there is working to show the real faces of Africa in general.

These days, Ethiopian is linking not only Ethiopia to Jakarta, but also Africa to South East Asian countries.

For example, the flight which takes off at 8 PM from Jakarta, lands in Addis early in the morning at 6:00 AM. Simultaneously, there are many flights to various African countries in the morning session. This means that a passenger who opts to use the Ethiopian Airlines departed from Jakarta at 8 PM reaches in the country of his destination in any parts of Africa midday on the morrow. Using these comparative advantages Ethiopian is connecting the African continent with Indonesia not only Addis Ababa and Jakarta. In so doing we are also changing the image of Africa.

So, our work includes among others; image building, enhancing public and business diplomacy.

There are also university-to-university partnerships. As I said earlier I had been working in the education sector for a long period of time. I had performed several activities to increase the university-to-university partnerships. I had facilitated the partnership among ten Ethiopian and Indonesian universities to sign a MoU on how to step up their researches and other academic cooperation.

The Addis Ababa (AAU), Bahir Dar and Hawassa Universities had made visits to the universities in Indonesia and discovered areas of cooperation.

There are also big universities in Malaysia. We are creating relationships in the academic area in Malaysia as well. For example, there are many Ethiopian lecturers in Malaysian Universities. One among them has made it back to his home country to lead the Addis Ababa Science and Technology University (AASTU) located in Qilinto, at the western outskirt of Addis Ababa. And we are working to launch common graduate and post graduate programs.

The other thing is that there is a high potential in Singapore in terms of science and technology. Together with the Ethiopian Ministry of Science and Innovation and ACT Engineering of Singapore, the Ethiopian Embassy is aspiring to bring ICT and Engineering excellence to Ethiopia.

Singapore has the second largest port enterprise in the world, called Singapore Port Enterprise. Having this in mind, we are working to solve the logistics service difficulties in Ethiopia in order to expand dry port services. They had visited Ethiopia recently.

Indonesia is expected to be the fourth largest economy in the world by 2030. It has a great interest of attracting Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in order to achieve this vision. They are doing their best to increase their export trade.

Similarly, Ethiopia has the same interest, to increase exports and attract more investors. Both countries have an opportunity to work together in these areas, he stated.

Indonesian journalists have also visited Ethiopia recently and toured to the industrial parks in different parts of Ethiopia with the view to publishing articles in Indonesian newspapers. This will help to increase the understating of Indonesians business people towards Ethiopia and the business opportunities that it has.

There is a high potential in the region. They have a wealth of experiences in science, education and development.

In the political contexts

Jakarta, Indonesia in the seat of the regional ASEAN countries forum in the East Asia region which includes; Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan etc… It is a kind of union among ten Asian countries in the region. So, we are working on issues that affect the region and the African continent with the African Union. There are many areas of cooperation between the regional organization of the AU and the Asian countries.

The other thing is that Indonesia has the third largest democracy in the world. They have many things in terms of democracy, election and parliamentarian representation. The Ethiopian Embassy is devoted to look in to these all in the areas of politics.

Indonesia is a country of 16 islands with over 400 nations and nationalities. It has 300 languages. However, they have common purpose and unity. How they managed to be strongly unified states could be a good example for Ethiopia, which has over 80 Nations, Nationalities and Peoples.

They had conducted a democratic election recently. Ethiopia has to take lessons from their election system? How the media is reporting during election? How their democratic institutions are effectively functioning?

Like Ethiopia, the countries of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have similar challenges. We have common problems. And these countries have an experience of solving such challenges smoothly. Ethiopia must draw lessons from their proven approach. But the problem here is the little or no attention accorded to these countries.

However, I think that there will be a high influx of business people and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from these countries in the coming future. I am working towards this, Ambassador Admasu concluded with hope.

Background

Ambassador Professor Admasu Tsegaye is Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Indonesia, Singapore, Malasiya and ASEAN Since January 2017. He holds a BSc degree from Alemaya College of Agriculture and MSc and PhD degrees in Crop Ecology and Resource Conservation from Wageningen University.

In addition to his research and teaching career at Hawassa and Addis Ababa University he has served in numerous academic management positions, including: President, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Research, Vice President for Administration and Development and Coordinator of several international projects.

He had also served as Chair and Members of several Boards in Ethiopia and ealsewhere. He had received African Higher Education Leadership Award and Excellence and Distinguished Leadership Award from the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Regional State and Hawassa University in recognition of his outstanding leadership and services to education.

He holds several international higher education and research positions. He is the Global Vice President of Sun Moon University, South Korea; the country representative of Plant Resources of Tropical Africa (PROTA); Director of Consortium of African US- Educators; and project leader and country representative of Co-Innovation for Quality in Agri-food Chain.

He had got several publication in a wide-range of distinguished international journals. His research and journal articles focus on various aspects of indigenous production methods, biodiversity, genetic diversity, value chain and physiology of indigenous crops. He has also presented several professional papers, conducted a variety of research trainings, written a book, research manuals and book chapters. He is currently the associate editor of the Netherlands Journal of Agricultural Science and received a prestigious Fulbright African Research Scholar Award for the 2011-2012 academic years.

Professional services

November 2016 till now. Professor of Crop Ecology and Resource Conservation, College of Development Studies, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia
September 2007 to October 2016. Associate Professor, Hawassa University, College of Agriculture, Department of Horticulture and Addis Ababa University, College of Development Studies
May 2002 to September 2007 Assistant Professor, Debub University, Hawassa College of Agriculture, Department of Plant Production and Dry Land Farming
March 1986 to May 1997. Lecturer and Researcher, Debub University, Hawassa College of Agriculture, Awassa, Ethiopia
October 1984 to March 1986. Assistant Research Officer, Agronomy, Institute of Agricultural Research, Ethiopia

Professional contributions and affiliations

Member of the National Science, Technology and Innovation Council
Member of the National Space Science Institute Council
Member of the National Biotechnology Institute Council
Associate Editor of Netherlands Journal of Agricultural Sciences
Member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Sciences and Development, Hawassa University
Chairperson of Governing Board of Ethiopian Quality Award Organization, since March 2011
Vice Chairperson of Governing Board of Gulele Botanic Garden, since March 2011
Vice Chairperson of Ethiopian Public Universities Consortium
Member of Dilla University Governing Board
Member of Addis Ababa Science and Technology University Governing Board
Member of Hawassa University Governing Board
Member of Ethiopian School Leaving Examination Governing Board, since March 2011
Member of the National Museum Governing Board
Member of the National Sport Acadamy Board
Member of Ethiopian Crop Science Society
Country representative, Plant Resources of Tropical Africa (PROTA)
Member of Ethiopian Agronomy and Physiology Society
Member of Biodiversity Society