Ethiopia has been doing its level best to guarantee economic integration not only among countries in the horn but also among Nile Basin countries chiefly with Egypt and Sudan. In fact, the relation between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan in connexion to the Nile River has remained topical since the commencement of the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
However, political and economic analysts postulated a number of areas in which these three countries could join forces for mutual development in addition to the file of the Nile River, advising them to invest on other economic opportunities for correlative development in addition to their endeavors to strengthen Nile cooperation.
It is possible to develop in concert if the three countries beef up their cooperation in all possible aspects. On the other hand, this deserves narrowing down differences over the utilization of the Nile River. Historical documents witness that the people to people interconnection among the three countries is powerfully built. If the three governments manage to handle it well, it will play a momentous role for interactional economic integration.
This is said so for the reason that they have a number of binding constituents including the deep-rooted religious, cultural and historical interconnection, which is the sole reason for any of these countries to refrain from inflicting any harm upon one another.
The ups and downs in building common understanding on the use of the Nile Waters should be analyzed with the sense of mutual development and a win-win solution building confidence among each other. If we go back to previous history, there were short of confidence, trust and hunch among the three states, which was aggravated by both international and national media.
The media have been misleading the people with biased and inaccurate reports in connection to equitable utilization of the Nile Water. The wrong path of the media coupled with lack of political commitment of the leadership on all sides exacerbated the misunderstanding and confusion among the people, which created an erroneous perception, really deviated from the reality on the ground. The irresponsible role of media, lack of political commitment and misapprehension to one another provoked the wearing away of the well cemented people to people relations.
In actual fact, the good relation among the people is intrinsically intertwined with no possibility of divorce. Despite the ups and downs, the people to people relation has still remained solid.
Up till now, the Nile River remained the central topic between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. Nevertheless, there are various unexploited areas that could contribute for a win-win solution. As a result, the respective governments should work industriously to build the confidence on one another.
They have to prosecute on having continuous genuine dialogues, which could help them to reinforce their all rounded relations not only in connection with the Nile River but also in using other potential economic opportunities. It is crystal clear that there are a lot of areas in which the three countries could cooperate in order to develop their economy.
For instance, Ethiopia, on one hand, has high demands of oil and it can import it from Sudan and Egypt. What is more is that it has a noteworthy potential of hydropower production, which could be developed well and fulfill the electricity demands of the two downstream countries with a reasonable price.
Currently, the Ethiopian government is spending billions of US dollars on the construction of power plants envisioning facilitating the country’s economic development plan. So far, Sudan links its power grids with Ethiopia. It is possible for the two countries to exchange hydropower with equivalent fuel at reasonable prices. Egypt and Ethiopia could also exchange in the same way as Egypt is one of the oil producing countries. According to Hindu Business Line, Sudan almost doubled its annual sugar import from 800,000 tons to 1.4 million tones. Whereas, Ethiopia has a large sugar development potential and has been building various projects.
Therefore, Sudan could purchase sugar from Ethiopia at an affordable price. Moreover, Egypt has a number of pharmaceutical companies producing a large number of medicines, whereas, the population of Ethiopia is about one hundred million and the domestic drug production couldn’t suffice the demands of the entire population. Hence, Ethiopia can purchase pharmaceutical products from Egyptian companies at reasonable prices. By the same token, about 24 percent of Egypt’s total import is livestock and food staff mainly wheat, maize and meat.
These are highly consumed in Egypt. Ethiopia, on the other hand, has a large fertile land and cheap human labor that it could cover the agricultural import needs of Egypt.
In general, the aforementioned examples indicate that the three countries: Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt need to build trust on one another, work on improving export-import restrictions, avoid discriminatory taxes, facilitate custom clearance and design transparent regulations. If they do so, they could enhance their opportunities of using all the economic potentials beyond the Nile River for their economic integration. As well, it will be possible for three of the countries to integrate economically through utilizing all the possibilities in addition to developing common projects along the Nile River.
Herald January 11/2019
BY KALEAB ADMASU
