- Construction on an industrial park is set to commence in Adama City by the end of 2019
- China is fitting 85% of the bill; Ethiopia is covering the remaining 15%
Joint efforts between China and Ethiopia to position Ethiopia as a leading manufacturing hub by 2025 are going ahead with a 100-hectare industrial park set to be built in Adama City, 99km south-east of Addis Ababa by the end of the year. The industrial park plans to attract firms in the equipment manufacturing sector.
Another industrial park was recently inaugurated by the Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, at the end of 2018. This industrial park, the first of its kind in Adama City, cost $146m. It was built by China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation over two years. This park is expected to create 40 000 direct and indirect jobs and to produce exports worth more than $38m.
The new park should generate around 25 000 jobs for Ethiopians. Speaking to Xinhua, Liu Yu, the economic and commercial counsellor at the Chinese embassy in Ethiopia, said the funding required to construct this new park would come from Chinese government concessional loans. Concessional loans generally have substantially more generous terms than market loans.
Liu Yu said land acquisition and financing-related procedures were underway. He added the partnership between Ethiopia and China had already achieved good results and that the governments were cooperating on various projects.
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