ADDIS ABABA – The inflow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) of the 2022/23 fiscal year, was said to be 3.428 billion USD which has shown 3.64% increment compared with last year’s similar performance, disclosed Ethiopian Investment Commission.
According to the Commission’s 2022/23 performance report, the commission has issued new investment license for 269 investors of which, 166 were foreign investors while 48 and 55 were joint and local investors.
Similarly, the licenses were issued for manufacturing, service and agriculture sectors led by countries like China, India and Kenya.
As per its plan, the commission has recruited and attracted several investors by conducting targeted promotion through virtual and zoom platforms.
Similarly, the commission has become member of international investment promotion agency so as to carry out international promotion activities and attract global investors.
As hosting events is one means of enhancing FDI, the commission has also organized “Invest and Grow in Ethiopia: The Land of Attractive Investment Opportunities” forum. And, over 1,000 previous and new investors comprised from 29 countries like China, Turkey. England, USA, Djibouti, Japan, among others, took part at the forum.
Apart from all the states and two city administrations as well as the 1,500 people who participated through virtual platform, IPDC, Ethiopian airlines, Ethio-telecom and Commercial bank of Ethiopia had hosted exhibition at the forum.
Thus, the commission was able to ink agreement with companies that showed keen interest to engage in investment worth over 1.6 billion USD investment. About 320 million USD worth agreement was made on the mining sector while 96.2 million USD Business to Business (B2B) investment agreement was signed.
As to the report, the earnings of both government and private industrial parks were 148.3 million USD which has shown decrement compared with last year’s similar period.
Through the support of the Britain government, ‘developing countries trading scheme (DCTS) that improves developing countries FDI was also implemented. During the 2022/23 FY, 269 projects were turned to implementation phase (135) and operation phase (134).
Internal and external conflicts, effects COVID-19 and the termination from African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), as well as lack of foreign currency were amongst the major challenges witnessed during the stated year, it was stated.
BY BETELHEM BEDLU
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2023
