Chinese companies' participation helps Ethiopia's manufacturing sector ambition -- official

Chinese companies' participation in Ethiopia's industrial parks development injects essential momentum into the country's aspirations in manufacturing sector, an Ethiopian official has said.

Daniel Teresa, deputy commissioner of the Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC), told Xinhua on Friday that as the East African country strives towards becoming a light manufacturing hub of Africa, Chinese companies are powering the ambitious goal of Ethiopia.

According to figures from the EIC, with the help of Chinese companies, which built the majority of industrial parks, Ethiopia has attracted some 2 billion U.S. dollars in foreign direct investment during the first nine months of the current 2020-21 Ethiopian fiscal year that started on July 9, 2020.

In March, the Ethiopian government announced that the country has earned 610 million U.S. dollars in export revenues from the 13 government-owned industrial parks.

Figures from the Ethiopian Industrial Parks Development Corporation (IPDC) showed that the export revenue was earned from the exports of apparel and other products produced by companies operating across the 13 industrial parks targeting global markets in the United States, European countries and other global markets.

"Chinese companies are the major players in Ethiopia's investment landscape, be it in the development of industrial parks as well as investing their capital and expertise inside these industrial parks," Teresa said.

Chinese companies and investors, said the official, "are now the mainstay of our country's manufacturing drive through the development of industrial hubs and massive investment potential."

One example is the Hawassa Industrial Park, which the Ethiopian government considers as its flagship industrial park and is located some 275-km south of the capital Addis Ababa. It was built and commissioned in July 2016 by China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), which also took part in the construction of Kombolcha Industrial Park.

Presently, Ethiopia has 13 government-owned industrial parks, seven private industrial parks, and four integrated agro-industrial parks that are being built by regional governments across the country. These industrial parks are either operational, under construction or on an initial stage.

The industrial parks have also created in excess of 89,000 jobs for Ethiopia's burgeoning youth population, the IPDC data showed.