Ethiopia will be leading hotspot for Turkish investment: Ambassador

(March 27, 2011, Addis Ababa,ENA)--Turkish ambassador to Ethiopia, Kenan Ipek said Ethiopia will become soon a leading hotspot for Turkish investment among African countries.

In an exclusive interview with ENA over the weekend, Ambassador Ipek said peace and stability and conducive investment climate are the driving forces for Turkish investment flow to Ethiopia.

The number of Turkish investors has increased to 225 in 2011 from only in 2002 making Turkey among the five top foreign capital injecting countries to Ethiopia.

The Turkish investors with an aggregate capital of 1.4 billion US dollars are engaged in textile, construction material, furniture, leather, agro-processing and water well drilling sectors, among others.

He said the Turkish investment projects have created 30,000 new jobs.

One of Turkey’s biggest investment, Ayka Addis textile and Garment factory, which is being built in Alemgena town with 100 million dollars will employ 10,000 jobs, the ambassador said.

Three other big textile factories are also under construction while three additional ones are on the pipeline.

As 90 percent of machineries are imported from Turkey for the investment projects, Ethiopia would benefit from the technology transfer in the sector.

Speaking about the trade relations, the ambassador said the trade exchange volume between the two countries has grown by 7-fold over the past seven years.

The trade exchange between the two nations went up to over 263 million dollars in 2010 from only 40 million US dollar seven years ago.

He said visit of high-level delegations to each others countries, the beginning of daily flight from Addis to Istanbul are among the factors for the furtherance of trade investment ties between the two nations.

Turkey exports machineries, steel, food products and clothes to Ethiopia while Ethiopia export to Turkey minerals, agricultural products specially, spices sesame, he said.

He said the recent Turkey-Ethiopia Trade and Investment Forum which attracted a 100-memebr Turkish delegation led by Turkish’s foreign trade state minister was constructive and fruitful.

The Ambassador said Turkish embassy in Addis Ababa is working on to launch Turkish airline cargo service which he said would help strengthen the trade and investment relations of the two countries.

The ambassador said the embassy eyes at promoting the tourism potential of Ethiopia and enhancing people to people relations through organizing cultural festivities.

Source: Ethiopian News Agency

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