ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopia offers a number of potential investment opportunities that UK companies can grab and exploit, former UK Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Ethiopia said.
Delegates of over 20 United Kingdom companies drawn from different sectors, including energy, hotel, trade, and banking have been holding discussions with senior officials here in the capital.
Former UK Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Ethiopia, Jeremy Lefroy told ENA that “the government has very ambitious plans to double and triple the current 4.4 gigawatts power generation. And there are UK-based investors who are very much involved in negotiating over, for instance, geothermal, solar, wind and indeed off-grid power generation.”
Manufacturing, agro-processing, especially unleashing the potential of agricuture, by particularly boosting small-holder farming are also the other luring areas, he pointed out. According to him, “the government wants to see small-holding farmers boost their incomes grow. One way to do that is to have better productivity through things like better irrigation, drip irrigation and more mechanization where appropriate, and local processing.”
Invest Africa CEO, Karen Taylor said “with the growth that Ethiopia has experienced over the last fifteen years at ten percent per annum or more, the potential for our investors is enormous and that is what is drawing them back to Ethiopia.”
Mining, tourism, agriculture, energy, financial services sector and telecommunications are among the sectors that the companies have been exploring as investment opportunities in Ethiopia, she elaborated. Investors can go and take their money wherever they are going to get a good return, the CEO said, adding that “Ethiopia has certainly enormous potential as a market place.”
She stated that the delegates “are hitting many of the sweet spots that Ethiopia is looking to develop with the private sector.” According to her, repatriation of fund and improving shortage of foreign exchange as well as ease of doing business are among the areas that the government should focus on.
The visiting UK companies will have a field visit to industrial zone sites tomorrow, besides the roundtable discussion with Governor of National Bank of Ethiopia and other officials about the economic reform that the country is undertaking.
The Ethiopian Herald, December 5/2019
BY TEWODROS KASSA
