Ethiopia will inaugurate two industrial parks built by Chinese firms next month, according to Xinhua news agency which quotes Ethiopia's Industrial Parks Development Corporation as saying that they are the Mekelle Industrial Park and the Kombolcha Industrial Park.
The two industrial parks, located 783 kilometres and 252 km north of Addis Ababa, respectively, are both dedicated to the textiles and apparels and have a combined construction cost of 250 million US dollaers.
Ethiopia has ambitions to be a textile and apparel manufacturing hub in Africa with a total contribution to the economy of the the country of one billion USD by 2020 and providing employment opportunities for a labour force estimated at 45 million people.
"There are about 10 ongoing or completed industrial park projects in Ethiopia with plans to inaugurate four other industrial parks by the end of 2017," the chief executive officer of the corporation, Sisay Gemechu, told Xinhua.
The Mekelle Industrial Park and Kombolcha Industrial Park are being built by China Communications Construction Company and China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation respectively.
Meanwhile, a water management company, Arvind Envisol, will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ethiopian government to build Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) solutions for all industrial parks being commissioned by the government.
Arvind Envisol is the company which set up a ZLD solution for the Hawassa Industrial Park, the eco-friendly industrial park which has the capacity of treating 11 million litres of waste water per-day.
A subsidiary of the global textile conglomerate Arvind Limited, Arvind Envisol is a world-class water management company providing end-to-end solutions for water treatment, industrial waste water treatment, sewage treatment and zero liquid discharge solutions.
Ethiopia, one of the fastest growing economies in the world, has embarked on ambitious green industrialization drive that will further boost the country's GDP and generate employment. Toward this end, it is developing ten industrial parks in different regions of the country. -(BERNAMA-NNN-ENA)