Ethiopia fastest growing among landlocked countries

• Written by  zeryhun kassa

Ethiopia is exemplary in achieving the fastest economic growth among 16 landlocked African countries. This came at the opening of a conference that brings together African landlocked countries.

“Almaty Action” is a strategic agreement that happened 10 years ago among world landlocked countries intending to resolve challenges these countries face.

Now landlocked countries from Africa gather in Addis Ababa to see how the agreement is translated into action over the years.

State Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Ahmed Shide told the conference Ethiopia has achieved double digit economic growth over the last 9 years overcoming challenges by putting in place multimodal transport service and employing sea-ports of Djibouti and Sudan.

The conference recognizes the challenges the landlocked countries face like infrastructure development and poor integration of the economies which exasperate the situation of the already sea-port lacking nations. Due to such factors, trade volumes in these countries are 20% less than countries with sea-gate.

The conference is expected to identify current challenges the countries experience to find ways that can mitigate the problems and significantly increase their trade volume.