Ethiopian government says country’s GDP per capita has now reached 217 USD from 164 USD five years ago.
Briefing about recent economic performance of the country to the national Parliament on Thursday (June 3, 2010), Ethiopia’s Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Sufian Ahmed, said that the income has grown by an average growth rate of 7.2 percent.
Ethiopia’s GDP has also shown a growth rate of 11.18 per cent on average over the last four years, according to Sufian. He also noted that investment sector’s growth stands at 31.5 per cent while its contribution to the GDP amounted to 24 per cent.
The service sector of the country, which has now takes the lead growing annually at about 15 percent, has contributed a lot for the growth. According to the minister, both the agriculture and industrial sectors have also contributed a lot for the economic growth the country has attained in the last four years.
The agriculture sector of the economy has been growing by an average of 8.5 per cent during the last four years. The minister said that the industrial sector has grown by 9.9 per cent per annum on average, with a meaningful contribution for the economic growth of the country.
“Existence of suitable investment policy, speeding up of privatization process, and expansion of infrastructure development, among others, are the major factor for the increase in investment flow,” Sufian noted.
According to MoFED’s official statistics, during the last six consecutive fiscal years, the average rate of saving as a percent of GDP was about 20.7% with the rate increased to 20.0 percent in the fiscal year 2008/09 (which ended July 7, 2009) form 19.0 percent in the previous fiscal year.
On the other hand, in the fiscal year 2008/9, the rate of investment was 22 percent of GDP which is a little bit slower than the last six years average, while the resource gap stood at 18.2 percent of GDP in the fiscal year 2008/09.
In the fiscal year 2008/09, GDP at the current market price reached 336.1 billion Birr from 86.7 billion Birr in 2003/04 fiscal year owing to the general price rise.
The demand side of GDP, during the fiscal year under review expanded by 35.2 percent compared to 2007/08 fiscal year. The 2008/09 aggregate demand expansion has originated from both consumption expenditure (33.4%) and gross capital formation (34.5%).