ADDIS ABABA– A four -day long Road School Program that has jointly organized by Ministry of Transport of Ethiopia and Korean Expressway Corporation (KEC) was launched here yesterday.
Speaking at the occasion, Hiwot Mosissa, Transport State Minister, said: “The school program would help us in sharing knowledge and narrowing experience gap we encountered in expressway, urban complex road construction and management.”
“We have started many road constructions including expressways and urban complex roads but the knowledge and experience we have in this sector is limited. On the contrary, Korea is among the globally top countries in road construction planning, finalizing effectively in quality and maintenance. This program thus, enables us to upgrade our competency to value added level.”
During the training and experience sharing program, Ethiopian experts in the Ministry and States will gain a lot from the Korean experts as Korea has over 4,000 km expressway and urban complex roads which are supported by Information Technology System (ITS), she said.
Hoonmin LIM, Korea’s Ambassador to Ethiopia, for his part said that Korea has grown its economy through the implementation of economic development strategies since the early 1970s which is similar to the Ethiopian Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP).
“We want to share our successful experience with Ethiopia in the course of its achieving GTP and entering into the advanced economy.”
For this reason, Korea has designed cooperation in the field of transportation as one of its key areas of Country Partnership Strategy to Ethiopia. “Today’s ‘Road School Program’ is also the product of close cooperation between the KEC and the Ministry of Transport,” he added.
Both officials said that the program along with its successive activities strengthens the long aged relationship of the two sisterly countries.
The Ethiopian Herald May 7/2019
BY BACHA ZEWDIE
