The Investment Commission of Ethiopia says the country has half a billion foreign during the first quarter of the country’s current fiscal year. Compared to last year the amount declined 20 percent.
Compared to the FDI the country attracted same period the previous year, the amount has declined by 20 percent as a result of the impact of the global pandemic, coronavirus, according to Commissioner of Ethiopian Investment Commission Lilise Neme. The Commissioner noted that 42 percent are registered to invest in manufacturing, 47 in service and 11 percent are in agriculture sectors.
Speaking to reporters on Monday Lilise stated that the half a billion dollar FDI registered in the three months in the face of the global pandemic is promising and considered as success. She noted that most of the FDI registered in Ethiopia over the last three months are from China.
Commenting on the questions if her office is assessing the contributions of FD to tax income of the country, Lilise said that the Commission has been supporting the companies and assessing the contributions of the firms in terms of tax, employment, among others.
“Investment Commission will not only into the implementation of the investment projects but also the contributions of the investment to the society and the priority they give to the community where they are investing,” she said, indicating that assessing tax payments of the investments is also part of the activities the Commission is engaged in.
Meanwhile, even though China, Turkey and India have been among top FDI sources in Ethiopia, only one Chinese company has appeared in the list of top 200 taxpayers, Ethiopia has awarded a few weeks ago.
During the last three months, the Commission has also assisted 46 investment projects to move to implementation phase and 36 other to operational phases, according to Lilise. Over the last three months the investments have created jobs to 16,659 people of which close to 11,000 jobs were created in industrial parks.