The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) will continue to assist the Second Home-Grown Economic Reform and is eager to diversify its support to Ethiopia, the representative and director of UNIDO Regional Hub in Ethiopia, Aurelia Patrizia Calabrò, said.

In an exclusive interview with ENA, Calabrò said this reform plan has been quite new when compared to the GTP plans that implemented in the past.

To this end, “we are very interested and following with the interest the implementation of this plan. We think it is a very important achievement,” she added.

The representative noted that we are very much encouraged by the results even if the Ethiopian economy has been facing lot of challenges in the last four years.

“We are working with the government very closely. We will continue to work more and more to assist the country to implement this reform plan.”

Elaborating on the challenges the country has been facing, Calabrò “ (among) the challenges you see is inflation. It is one of the challenges that is still to be fully addressed (along with) shortage of foreign currency. It has not really reached the level that you have expected.”

But, at the same time export earnings have grown in some sectors like coffee for two consecutive years. It has shown increment and is very important in earning revenues.

Therefore, “there are very positive results that we as UNIDO are looking and studying. But we also that we can contribute more. That is why we are looking forward to seeing this Second Phase of the Home-Grown Economy Reform plan,” she stated.

The representative also said that UNIDO is looking forward to supporting Ethiopia’s efforts in areas of tourism, digitalization, among other sectors.

“I think one of the sectors that has gained momentum is tourism which was not there in the past. Tourism industry is very important and we should think on how we can create the necessary capacity.”

According to her, it is a kind of focal area that we hope in the months to come. We will also work very closely with the government.

For Calabrò, the other important thing is digitalization. “I think it’s an area that we are looking at very important because we already see that it has been improving in the financial sector with the creation of this telebirr.”

There are of course certain areas that need some corrections on the macroeconomic level, especially to put some balances in place for inflation and foreign currency, she said.

Moreover, the representative pointed out that there are a lot of opportunities, particularly from the private sector.

This should not be only the construction sector but also the manufacturing sector because you really need to go into one of the bases of this reform, which is import substitution, she stressed.

Calabrò finally said that Ethiopians “have to create your own products, because you have the inputs. Ethiopia is reaching the inputs and also it’s able to give food to its own people.”

Source: Ethiopian News Agency