Addis Ababa, 20 August, 2015(WIC)- The Ministry of Mining says it has planned to double job opportunities in various mineral mining areas during the second Growth and Transformation Plan(GTP TWO) period.
In an exclusive interview with WIC, Public Relation and Communication Director of the Ministry, Bacha Fuji, said the Ministry has now created job opportunities for about 440 thousand people and has planned to double this number with in the coming five years.
As the Ministry has planned to extract more minerals during the period, more companies and traditional miners are expected to engage in the sector and this in turn will create job opportunities for the youth, he explained.
According to bacha, Ethiopia is supplying 14 thousand 421 kilograms of gold to the market and this amount is scheduled to grow by 19 percent during the coming five years. The sector is at present generating 550 million dollars annually and the Ministry has planned to increase this number by 45 percent in the stated period, he added.
“We have also planned to double the amount of income that we annually get from the domestic market in the period. We expected the area that will be covered by search of various minerals will reach 11 percent during GTP two period,” Bacha remarked.
The Ministry is preparing to make a broad research on minerals that are more demanded by both domestic and overseas manufacturing and construction industries and give priority to the extraction of these minerals during the stated period, Bacha underlined. In order to fill the knowledge and skill gap in the sector, more professionals and renowned consultants shall be hired, he added.
The Ministry’s GTP two plan is tailored by taking the drawbacks observed during the first GTP period in to account and more emphasis will be given to extracting minerals that can be inputs for the industry sector, he noted.