Aiming high Ethiopia is flapping wings to experience a socioeconomic take off predominantly characterized by industrial transformation. Luckily a turnaround is crystallizing.
This leap, unprecedented in the country’s time-old history, is expected to herald its break away from an ailing economy that heavily leaned on an antediluvian farming system to which the country endeavors to give a kiss of life via modernization.
Though strides made to this effect are promising, tragically, there is a call for parrying roadblocks that slacken the developmental push.
Infrastructural facilities put in place are not in consonance with the developmental thrust like effecting the birth of industrial parks and letting the ball of manufacturing rolling.
Shortage of electricity, the lifeblood of industrialization, is one of the formidable setbacks bogging down the march towards socioeconomic deliverance. When Mega projects like the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and others see the light of day the problem is expected to get a solution.
In sufficient water supply is also among the constraints in the equation of industrial transformation. Provided exertion, redressing this challenge could not be a headache as the country is blessed with abundant water resources which beg for tapping.
Road networks that connect all needed areas to the required level are also lacking posing a stranglehold in the industrial transformation. For creating market linkage and hauling raw materials and factory products to and fro the significance of roads could not be gainsaid. Ethiopia’s Road authority is expected to press ahead with its commendable task of seeing to outreaching even far flung corners of the country with road networks.
A gap is also palpable in agro-industries that feed industrial parks. The Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) is expected to bump up production. The task it is accomplishing in this respect is mandatory. At this junctures it is appropriate to mention that MoA is flexing muscles to modernize the dairy sector and step up dairy products by two folds.
It is working focusing on improving quality and quantity parallel to shaping mindset. It as well is trying to catalyze market linkage and improving genetic breed.
It is clicking with cooperatives for a better performance. Similar exertions are expected in all spheres of endeavor to spare the country from encumbrances. Here the policy reform in the mining sector could be raised as an instance.
As much focus must be placed on the manufacturing sector as the service-rendering ones. The chasm has to be bridged.
Happily though, many foreign investors have joined the industrial parks. Ways have to be sought that will allow technology transfer. There has to be a system that encourages local investors engaged in the manufacturing sector via partnership.
The exertion plays quite a role in absorbing many youngsters that sat idle. It as well helps in curbing badly-needed currency outflow via import substitution.
As local investors are basking under the support and incentives of the government, they are expected to play a key role in seeing to the serenity of the country. The lack of tranquility, observed in some corners of the country, is casting a shadow on the investment atmosphere of the country.
This challenge need to be rooted out by an all-out effort, for peace is the oxygen of investment. Apart from ensuring the normalization of the conduct of their business, tranquility goes a long way to allow them efficiently discharge their social responsibilities.
Corruption and bureaucratic red tape could be logjams to the industrial transformation push.
Unshackling the transformation from encumbrances translating it into action is imperative. As such all stake holders are expected to come aboard and contribute their due share.
The Ethiopia Herald February 23/2020
