The Government of Ethiopia has been underpinning the opening up efforts of the logistics sector to foreign investors to allow competitiveness, according to Ministry of Transport.
Ethiopian Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges said that the East African nation has embarked on wide-ranging manufacturing activities and export, but the country will not be competitive unless it solves the logistical bottlenecks.
Noting that Ethiopia’s foreign trade volume has currently reached over 12 million tons from 1.3 million tons in 1991, she added that the development of the country’s logistics service has however failed to catch up.
Ethiopia spends heavily on trade logistics-related costs and the sector is highly monopolized by the state which has to be privatized for better competition, according to her.
The ministry has been accelerating the sector’s liberalization since the reform so that logistics could be opened to foreign investors and joint ventures with local firms, Dagmawit pointed out.
Among the public-owned logistics enterprises to be privatized include Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Services Enterprise (ESLSE), and Ethiopian Railway Corporation that will first be restructured and then fully privatized, the minister disclosed.
The minister said the government has been implementing the 10 years comprehensive National Logistics Strategy (NLS) in order to address the gaps through attracting competent private investment in the country’s trade logistics sector.
The opening up of the logistics sector will also enhance the supply of high-end logistics services while local companies obtain world class knowledge, skill, management, and systems by working together with globally reputed logistics service providers, it was learned.
