The Ethiopian government has announced today that the country’s currency notes are demonetized. The public is given a three months window to exchange old currency notes from the banks. The birr notes affected through this change were 100, 50, and 10 denominations. The change includes introduction of a new 200 Read more…
In a speech in 1959, J. F. Kennedy has famously said “When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters – one represents danger and one represents opportunity.” Langan-Riekhof and others have gone so far as saying “Sometimes the world needs a crisis” to turn challenges into Read more…
Krugman, Nobel Laureate and New York Times Columnist, observed that “the economic contraction we’re experiencing is the fastest on record, by a large margin; we’ve probably lost as many jobs over the past two weeks as we did in the whole of the Great Recession. The policy response is also Read more…
It was within a few months of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD)’s administration coming into office that a radical economic reform program was launched. The government announced their decision to privatize key public enterprises, including Ethio telecom, Ethiopian Airlines and other public utilities. The urgency with which the authorities got Read more…
Ethiopia needs a deeper economic reform agenda that is rooted in evidence-based decision-making. A cursory glance through Ethiopia’s economic literature leaves one to wonder if there are two Ethiopias. On the one hand, official reports paint a rosy picture. It has often been referred to as one of the fastest-growing Read more…
In December 2019 alone, Ethiopia’s external debt stock has increased by about US$ 9 billion. The multilateral agencies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, each approved about US$ 3 billion. The VOA has quoted PM Abiy’s tweet referring to unnamed source pledging yet another US$ 3 billion. Read more…
This piece is the second of a two part series. The first part, Ethiopia’s Rapidly Inflating Debt Mountain, has set the background by presenting and discussing facts and figures on Ethiopia external debt and also providing a highlight of domestic debt. This part of the series will build on part Read more…
Waggaa shanan tokko fuuldura, barattoota univarsiti eebissuu dhaaf hooggantoonii ODP (enna sana OPDO), bakka addaa addaa ti ergamani turan. Hundii saanii yoo haasaa godhan, waanuma tokko irratii xiyyeeffatan: wal ijaaraatii kobil stoonii dhan daandii tolchaa! Kana turee dhaamsi saanii. Hojjaan haatuffatamu jechuu koo mitii, waan faala waayiin dhaamsa sana keessati Read more…
During the last few days I hear news regarding preparations for Irreecha 2019 events. The Grand Irreecha event has been celebrated at Hora Harsadii (in Bishoftu). Irreecha 2019 will be a special event in that the festival will resume taking place at Hora Finfinnee after interruption for over a century. Read more…
Technological innovation is one of the fundamental instruments of growth to help developing countries lift themselves out of poverty. In the context of economic developments over recent decades, technological innovations draw exemplary inspirations from the Four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) due to the fact that Read more…