Economy

In addition to the growing population, vast land area and big natural resource potentials, there are now new policies, new development needs and excellent future prospects which require a new strategy for the sector of transportation.

The Ethiopian economy is largely agriculture based, with this sector contributing 80% to the national GDP. However, domestic industry and services sectors continue to provide business opportunities in construction, trade, banking and tourism.

A comparison of GDP composition with neighbouring African countries is summarised below:‐

Indicator (2008 Est)	Ethiopia	Kenya	S Africa	Senegal	Djibouti
GDP Composition
Agriculture	80%	23.8%	9%	16%	3.2%
Industry	6.6%	16.7%	26%	9%	14.9%
Services	13.2%	59.8%	65%	64%	81.8%
GDP Real Growth Rate	8.5	2.2	2.8	4.7
GDP Per Capita	$ 800	$ 1,600	$10,000	$ 1,600	$ 3,700
Public Debt (% of GDP)	34.4%	52.7%	29.9%	21.4%
Inflation	41%	25.5%	11.3%	6.6%	5%

Information Origin – Central Services Agency Statistics 2008

As can be seen, Ethiopia has achieved better growth rates compared with others in the continent. The economy performed better in 2006 and 2007, growing at 10.9% and 11.1% respectively. However, the high rate of inflation eroded these gains. This issue is being addressed by FDRE.

During the past four years the country has witnessed accelerated growth of over 10% p.a. and the envisaged growth strategies and targets of even 7% is expected to more than double the GDP in the coming 10 years. In terms of GDP, this summarised as follows:‐

Due to the rapid growth of the economy, the transport requirements will rise to unprecedented levels for both road and rail. Therefore, the entire transport strategy of the country (urban, rural and inter‐urban transport) has to be reconsidered taking into account the need for better access to new areas to unlock the hitherto unexploited or underutilized potential of the country and for efficient high volume transport system.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20