Nasqad
Saturday June 16, 2018
The United Arab Emirates pledged a total of $3 billion in aid and
investments to Ethiopia on Friday, an Ethiopian official said, a major
show of support for the new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed.
The UAE
will deposit $1 billion in Ethiopia's central bank to ease a severe
foreign currency shortage, government spokesman Ahmed Shide told Reuters
at a palace in Addis Ababa after Abiy met with Abu Dhabi's crown
prince, Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed.
In 2013, the UAE was one of three
Gulf monarchies that pledged a total $12 billion to the new government
after the military ousted a president from the Muslim Brotherhood.
Abiy,
a 41-year-old former intelligence officer, took up his position office
in April after three years of unrest that had threatened the EPRDF
coalition's hold on power.
The coalition's choice of Abiy,
from an ethnic group that has long been marginalised, signalled its
willingness to allow some political reforms, but he has already gone
farther and faster than most had expected.
Two weeks ago the
government said it would sell stakes in its lucrative telecoms monopoly
and other assets including the national airline.
It also pledged to end a war with long-time enemy Eritrea, offering to implement a peace deal signed in 2000.
DAM DISPUTE
Last
weekend Abiy visited the UAE's ally, Egypt, and offered a newly
conciliatory tone in a long and bitter row over a dam Ethiopia is
building on the Nile, which Egypt fears threatens its water supplies.
Abiy had travelled to both Abu Dhabi and Riyadh shortly after taking office.
Shide said the UAE's pledges would have a "significant impact" on Ethiopia's foreign currency shortage.
Despite
showing the fastest growth in Africa for the past decade, the
landlocked country of 100 million people is heavily dependent on
imports.
A hard currency crunch caused partly by spending on big
infrastructure projects has reduced foreign currency reserves to less
than one month's worth of imports, according to analysts' estimates.
Foreign investors and local businesses say all sectors of the economy
have been hit.
Abiy said in April that the government's plans to
continue expanding its infrastructure and the nascent manufacturing
sector meant the currency crisis might last for 15 or 20 years.
A
Ethiopian foreign ministry official said the other $2 billion from Abu
Dhabi would be invested in tourism, renewable energy and agriculture.
On
Friday afternoon, Abiy got behind the wheel of a white car and
personally gave Sheikh Mohamed, the de facto leader of the United Arab
Emirates, sitting in the passenger seat, a tour of Addis Ababa.
Shide said the crown prince's delegation included investors interested in real estate and hospitals.