ADDIS ABABA- Home-grown economic improvement program aimed at addressing macro-economic, structural and sectoral challenges will soon be made open for public scrutiny, the government announced.
Addis Weg, a forum which the Office of the Prime Minister organizes brought together yesterday economists, policymakers and other stakeholders on a topic relating to job creation.
Mamo Mihretu, the Prime Minister’s Policy Advisor, said on the occasion that the home-grown program is meant to tackle various challenges including those relating to job creation and is expected to stabilize the economy.
The program will also support private business. The government will take macro-economic measures such as enhancing its project execution capacity and arresting inflation as well as increasing the forex inflow, he said.
In addition to creating a healthy business environment to investors, modernizing logistic services and boosting power supply, job creation will get prime focus as per the structural reform, according to him.
Speaking of the sectorial reform, he said besides working to increase product and productivity and encouraging the manufacturing sector, special importance will be attached with the mining sector and the creative industry, such as Information Technology, to create more jobs in the country.
For his part, Investment Commissioner Abebe Abebayehu stressed as the tasks executed to ease doing business in Ethiopia have brought results that go as far as changing the trade law. The reform undertaken so far has eased commercial licensing and registration while modernizing tax collection.
All the activities are streamlined to the creation of jobs, he said. At the event, panelists that represent public and private sectors also sorted out opportunities and challenges of the job creation efforts. Dr. Biruk Taye, from Ministry of Finance, highlighted tasks being executed to create more jobs in the country.
To him, the diplomatic achievement in restructuring debts secured from Chinese banks is notable. The government has been making asset valuation, environment impact assessment and the likes to transfer six factories to private holdings.
One of the panelists, Messay Tadese, a private consultant, said the government ought to encourage private enterprises. To him, close to 55,000 enterprises are operational in Ethiopia, with 28 percent of them led by women. “Their main challenge is access to finance.”
Messay stressed that supporting this sector will help citizens create jobs to themselves and many others. Biruk Fikru, also a panelist representing the private sector, said execution gap among the public sector has remained to be among the top challenges.
The regulatory body of various sectors ought to be equipped with the right knowledge and skills to bring about tangle changes, he said. To encourage new businesses and sustain existing ones, the government is expected to make fundamental changes, he said.
Addis Weg so far created a platform for social and political issues, said Prime Minister’s Office Head of Press Secretary, Nigussu Tilahun. He noted as the platform yesterday was an ice-breaker in the economic front.
The Ethiopian Herald, August 13/2019
BY WORKU BELACHEW
Photo: Dagne Abera
