Though a tough time due to COVID-19 and internal challenges, Ethiopia had successfully completed and inaugurated national flagship development projects during the previous year, 2020.
The successful completion of GERD’s first phase filling, inaugurations of Bahir Dar Industrial Park, Dire Dawa Industrial Park, Sheger Bread Factory as well as destination development projects such as Entoto Park, Sheger Beautification Park are among few of the development feats achieved during 2020.
In addition, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (Ph.D.) initiative: ‘Dine for Ethiopia’ which would bring to reality three beautification projects in Gorgora, Wonchi, and Koisha were launched.
In late July, Ethiopia announced the successful completion of the initial phase filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a flagship power plant that started in 2011. Accordingly, the dam has impounded 4.9 billion cubic meters of water only within two weeks after its height reached 560 meters.
Sheger Bread Factory, the largest factory in Addis Ababa with the potential of manufacturing two million loaves of bread every day, also became operational on 26 June 2020. During the inauguration, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said that “the completion of Sheger bread factory in ten months is symbolic of our path to prosperity”.
Apart from contributing to food security by providing loaves of bread at an affordable price, the Sheger Bread factory was announced to create over 3,400 jobs for Addis Ababa residents completed with over 900 million Birr.
The inauguration of Entoto and Sheger parks was also among the major achievement during the previous year. The parks have already gone operational with various indoor and outdoor facilities, including sports centers, libraries, restaurants, and coffee shops.
The inauguration of Bahr Dar and Dire Dawa industrial parks was also the present of 2020, expected to create jobs for over 30,000 citizens and boost the nation’s export. During his two days visit to Bahir Dar City, Amhara State capital, Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed inaugurated Bahir Dar Industrial Park on 7, October 2020.
During the inauguration, it was indicated that the park was constructed with 53 million USD and rests on a 75-hectare of land with 8 sheds. When it goes fully operational, Bahir Dar Industrial Park is expected to create jobs for 10,000 citizens.
On 29 October 2020, during his one day visit to Eastern Ethiopia, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (Ph.D.) also inaugurated the Dire Dawa Industrial Park, which has a capacity of creating jobs for 20,000 citizens.
Dire Dawa Industrial Park built with an outlay of 150 million USD with 15 working shades rests on a 150-hectare tract of land.
The premier also officially launched “Dine for Ethiopia” in late August to mobilize funds to build Koisha, Gorgora, and Wonchi beautification projects in Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’, Amhara, and Oromia states respectively to raise 3 billion Birr.
These projects are successors of the Unity, Sheger, and Entoto beautification initiatives planned to expand tourist destination places of the country by exploiting the available potential. Following the call, Ethiopians are contributing to these projects and up to now, over one billion birr was promised.
Recently, on December 24, 2020, Addis Ababa City Administration and investors operating in the city announced to contribute 390 million Birr while the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia contributed 1.1 billion Birr for “Dine for the Nation” projects.
Until late October, the Ethiopian Diaspora has also contributed over 280 thousand USD for the projects while hundreds of companies are contributing to millions.
Ethiopia also launched its second remote sensing satellite on 22 December 2020, ET-SMART-RSS, successfully. ET-SMART-RSS is an earth observation Nano-satellite with high resolution, which is the successor of first-ever Ethiopia’s satellite, ETRSS-1, launched 20 December 2020.
(Source The Ethiopian Herald )