By Godfrey Olukya 14-12-2012
A report recently released by the world bank indicates that Ethiopia’s economy is doing very well in comparison to other African countries.
According to the report, over the past decade, the Ethiopian economy has been growing at twice the rate of the Africa region, averaging, 10.6 percent GDP growth per year between 2004 and 2011 compared to 5.2 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new report by the World Bank.
The Ethiopian government claims that the impressive economic growth is mainly due to agricultural modernization, the development of new export sectors, strong global commodity demand, and government-led development investments.
World bank country director for Ethiopia, Guang Zhe Chen said, ‘Ethiopia is doing well as far as reducing poverty is concerned. Two and a half million people in Ethiopia have been lifted out of poverty over the past five years as a result of strong economic growth, bringing the poverty rate down from 38.7 percent to 29.6 percent between 2004/05 and 2010/11.’
The Government of Ethiopia has also made progress in tackling the persistently high inflation which affected the economy over the past two years by tightening its fiscal and monetary stance. As a result, inflation is on a decreasing trend, falling from 33 percent in 2011 to 15.8 percent in October 2012 which is good news for the poor and for the overall economy.
World bank country economist, Michael Geiger said that the main reason why Ethiopia’s economy has grown is her increase in goods exports and diversification of its export base.
Ethiopia is also renown of exporting services to neighboring countries. Her airline, the Ethiopian airline is one of the best managed in Africa.
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