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Ethiopia's economic performance said favorable Source: Reporter 7/17/2002 6:24:00 AM Addis Ababa, July 17, 2002 A United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has rated Ethiopia's economic performance during the 2001/2002 fiscal years as "good." The report rated Ethiopia's economy as the 10th best performing economy in the "good" category, while South Africa, the continent's largest economy, was rated the best (no. 1). Four southern African countries including Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland taking the 2nd to 4th places after South African achieved the best four economic performances. The report indicated that growth in Ethiopia's GDP would be 7 percent, 1.7 percent less than the previous year. The reasons for the favorable economic performance, according to the report, were recovery of agricultural outputs, increased rural income and domestic expenditure, and cession of conflict with Eritrea. It noted that the country had good medium-term prospects for better performance if it remained politically stable, experienced good weather conditions, exploited opportunities from the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative and the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA), implemented effective institutional reform and HIV/AIDS control programs. However, the report pointed out that Ethiopia was still by and large one of the world's poorest countries with a per capital income of " 110 USD in 2001" as the country suffered from high illiteracy, law school enrollment, short life expectancy and with half of its people living below the poverty line. The bad performance rating was given this year to Kenya and Zimbabwe. The Economic Report on Africa (ERA) 2002 entitled "tracking Performance and Progress" showed that the growth of African economies was faster than other developing economies in the world. |