May 20 , 2023
Hundreds of international and local exhibitors, 600 industry players and 19,0000 visitors gathered to attend the three-day Exhibition held at the Millennium Hall last week. A ministerial forum between Finance, Mines, Industry, Planning & Development, Urban & Infrastructure ministries and Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC) was held on the first day to discuss investment opportunities in construction. Unskilled human power, flawed project management, and deficient business linkage were cited as the major hurdles to the construction by Chaltu Sani, minister of Urban Development & Infrastructure. Although construction accounts for 19pc GDP, showing 11pc growth in the past few years, it has been plagued with intricate challenges that have bottlenecked its growth. Ahmed Shide, minister of Finance, disclosed their plan to expand Public Private Partnerships (PPP) by structuring transferability and sustainability guarantees through incentives for domestic and international investors. He said insurmountable public spending on infrastructure has greatly contributed to the galloping inflation despite 60-65pc of the government's budget going to construction. State Minister for Planning & Development, Sandokan Debebe, announced the 10-year infrastructure, irrigation, and energy development plan. According to Sandokan, 224,000km of road will be built by 2033, doubling the current reality. The Ministry has plans to quadruple the energy output to 20,000MW by expanding transmission lines. "There are a lot of investment opportunities," he said.
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