Addis Ababa, 21, August,2015(WIC)- Increasing private sector engagement, modernizing farming technologies and boosting input utilization will be given priority in the coming five years to enhance agricultural development, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said.
While concluding discussions being held with representatives of various corners of the society about the economic performance in the first GTP and priorities in the second plan period, Hailemariam said private investment in the agriculture sector was low during the past five years.
Even though there were investors who received land to engage in commercial farming, their contribution in terms of productivity and technology transfer was low, the Premier said.
Over 2.8 million hectares land has been given to investors for commercial farming.
Priority is given to increase private sector engagement, and improve agricultural output during the second five-year Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) period, since agriculture continues to be the major factor for the realization of the projected double digit economic growth.
Traditional farming and marketing systems, limitation of private sectors engagement, and insufficient supply of inputs including improved seeds, contributed for the agriculture to lag behind the target.
The government has set target for an eight percent growth at the end of the first GTP period, but its performance stands at 6.6 percent.
Success was attained in the natural resource conservation activities carried out across the country to retrieve degraded land and basins as well as reforest denuded areas, size of land developed through irrigation, and productivity of small scale farmers over the last five years.
The performance of the industry sector, with a 20 percent growth, was fast, but it couldn’t bring structural transformation, since the contribution of the manufacturing sector was not as expected, he said.
The manufacturing sector was expected to expand by 18 to 20 percent during the past five years, but the sub-sector has grown by 13 percent, which is low below the target.
He attributed the failure to the low level of performance in micro, small and medium enterprises.
The government will actively engage to address challenges in the manufacturing sector through expansion of industrial parks, establishing market chains and work out on the heavy bureaucracy, among others.
In spite of huge public investment in the infrastructure and successes gained in this regard, further expansion of infrastructure networks and improving their quality is important, since it has contributed to the low performance of the manufacturing sector to some extent, he said.
Ethiopia is one of the top three countries in the world regarding infrastructure development, he added, but the expansions are not broad to support the economy as desired.
So, extensive work is needed to expand infrastructure networks within the coming five years. (Source; ENA)