Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has said he is a capitalist and plans to privatize state-owned companies in the sugar, energy, and shipping, and the airline sector.
Ethio Telecom will be the first organization to be privatized. The government is set to sell off its 49 percent stake in the telecommunication company and put it in private hands by the end of 2019. Ethio Telecom is one of the biggest telecommunication firms in Africa. The company reportedly has about 60 million subscribers.
“My economic model is capitalism,” the Ethiopian leader told the Financial Times during a recent interview. “If you give me $100 billion now, I can’t use it. There is not only money, there is talent and experience. That’s why we need the private sector.”
As part of plans to open up the economy, the government plans to launch an Ethiopian stock exchange in 2020.
Prime Minister Ahmed’s capitalist leanings and his plans to privatize many state-owned firms have made Ethiopia popular among foreign investors.
“When I speak with international investors about opportunities in Africa, the first name that pops up is Ethiopia,” said Miguel Azevedo, head of Citibank’s investment bank for Africa.
Despite the excitement of foreign investors, the Ethiopian leader has expressed caution with the on-going wave privatizations. According to him, officials will first carry out the privatization of the country’s telecom company and would use that to learn the best way forward.
“We do telecom, we learn something, we evaluate seriously, we continue,” he said.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came into office in April last year when the country was experiencing widespread anti-government protests. His administration has been marked by sweeping reforms across different sectors. Previous Ethiopian leaders have pursued a rigid policy that gave the government control of many industries.
