The 10th Ethiopian Public-Private Consultative Forum was held yesterday in order to identify the basic problems that impede the productive capacity of the manufacturing sector and establish the possible solutions at Sheraton Addis.
Speaking on the opening of the forum, Minister of Trade Kebede Chane said: “Since our developmental and democratic government designed and implemented development strategies and policies, our country has scored considerable progress in which the citizens are benefiting. It is evident that the contribution of the private sector for this development is very significant.”
Explaining the purpose of the forum, Industry Minister Ahmed Abitew also said that the forum helps both the private sector and the government reduce the constraints on productivity on the manufacturing sector.
Taking the great deal of contribution of the sector into consideration, the government has been initiating such a forum on which the private sector and the government can discuss issues of concern that can retard the productivity of the manufacturing sector.
Public-Private Consultative Office General Manager Eyob Tekalign and the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce Deputy Secretary presented the finding of their research entitled ‘the Problems and Solutions of the Ethiopian Productive and Competitiveness of the Productive Sector.’
According to the researchers, the key problems include lack of the provision of adequate amount of financial resources, shortage of raw materials for they are not being properly produced locally, absence of qualified human power, recurrent power interruption, inadequate application of technology and the like.
In connection with this, they put forward possible solutions such as establishing the investment bank, increasing the productivity of the agricultural outputs , capacitating the human power through continuous training, establishing well organized infrastructure, developing the ICT industry and so on.
In their presentations the researchers stressed that their role is proposing possible solutions while the government takes high responsibility in order to solve these identified problems.
After listening to the presentation, the participants commented on the findings and proposed other solutions. According to them, the financial institutions should carry out their duties in providing adequate resources so that the manufacturing sector could produce to their full capacity.
[TheEthiopianHerald]