Ethiopia's economic performance said fovorable

Source: The Reporter

Ethiopia's economic performance during the 2001/2002 fiscal year was yesterday rated as "good" by the Economic Report on Africa (ERA).

The report from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) 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).

The best four economic performances were achieved by four southern African countries including Botswana, Namibia and Swaiziland taking the 2nd to 4th places after South Africa.

The report estimates that growth in Ethiopia's GDP is estimated to be 7 percent, 1.7 percent less than the previous year. The reasons for the favorable economic performance, according to the report, are "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 "remains politically stable, experience weather conditions, exploits opportunities from the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative and the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA), implements effective institutional reform and implements HIV/AIDS control programmes.

However, the report pointed out that Ethiopia was still by and large one of the world's poorest countries with a per capita income of "$ US 110 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.

Morocco also was rated as one of the "good" performances in the same fiscal year.

The report lauded the Moroccan government's "increased commitment to opening up the economy" which, it said, was reflected in "policies that have been adopted to attract foreign direct investment (FDI)."

The Nigerian economy also showed up to 4 percent growth. But, according to the report, as the population growth was 3 percent per annum, the growth made "little impact on the overall standard of living in the country".

The bad performance ratingd were given this year to Kenya and Zimbabwe.

The report described

the economic trends in Kenya as "disappointing". Since the mid-nineties, the GDP growth had been declining, the report said.

ERA also described the Zimbabwean economy as "crumbling", which has been "contracting" since the year 2000.

Poor weather condition coupled with the controversial farm land "invasions" had been pointed out as factors facilitating the poor performance of the country's economy.

ERA 2002 entitled "tracking Performance and Progress" showed that the growth of African economies was faster than other developing economies in the world.