Planning and Development Minister Fitsum Assefa said Ethiopia’s debt-to-GDP ratio has declined to 13.7 percent following the implementation of the comprehensive economic reform.
In her briefing regarding the achievements of the macroeconomic reform and next endeavors, the minister noted that the government has been implementing new economic and social policy perspectives to address systematic and structural problems.
The new policy perspective focuses on a multi-sectoral approach and prioritizes responding to the fair share of citizens by implementing the inclusive system, she added.
According to Fitsum, priority has been given to agriculture, the manufacturing industry, mining, tourism, and the digital economy to make them contribute equally to development and rectify the imbalance of economic actors.
As a result, a transfer of the government’s leading role in the economy to the private sector was affected.
In this regard, structural transformation that aims at removing challenges to the development of policies for centuries is set as a goal, the minister stated.
During the implementation of the first phase of the Home Grown Economic reform, large-scale reforms were carried out to modernize the economy and open it up for competition, she pointed out.
To realize this, the country has revoked and implemented over 80 laws, the Commercial Code, and the Investment Proclamation, the minister said, adding that the implementation of the reform has improved the service, business, and investment environment and made the digital economy a reality.
In addition to making public-owned enterprises productive and profitable, big companies such as Ethiotelecom that have been closed to the private sector for years are opened as per the new policy perspective, Fitsum elaborated.
Following the reform, encouraging achievements have been registered in terms of increasing government revenue by many folds as compared to the past by adjusting expenditure, improving research-based project implementation and performance, and transferring subsidies to the intended purpose.
Development in Ethiopia had been financed through a huge debt burden, the minister stated, adding that various activities have been carried out to rectify such a trend during the past six years.
In this respect, the country was able to ease debt by avoiding any commercial loans, debt rescheduling, and paying loans significantly.
As a result, she revealed that Ethiopia’s current debt-to-GDP ratio has fallen to 13.7 percent, recalling that the ratio was over 30 percent before the reform.
The comprehensive macroeconomic reform that has been implemented since July 2024, has also been registering significant achievements, particularly in areas such as foreign exchange management, revenue, and export revenue, among others, it was indicated.
Source: ENA
