Ethiopia earns $976mln from exports in 3 months

Addis Ababa, October 16, 2022 (FBC) – Ministry of Planning and development confirmed that Ethiopia has earned 976 million USD from exports in the first quarter of the current fiscal year.

With the presence of FDRE Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, review of the accomplishments of the main macroeconomic and sectors for the first quarter of 2022/23 fiscal year is underway in Gondar city.

Minister of Planning and Development, Fitsum Aseffa, presented the quarterly report.

In the first quarter of the current fiscal year, she mentioned that the flow of foreign currency increased by 14 percent.

She said that out of the $976 million earned from foreign trade in the quarter, $426 million was earned from agricultural products.

The Minister stated that the achievement of manufacturing and mining sectors showed a slight decrease compared to the same period of the last fiscal year.

Minister Fitsum pointed out that the cost of flower products was among the products that showed significant improvement.

She underlined that smuggling and illegal trade are the bottlenecks of the sector and said that improvement is needed to takle these problems in the future.

The Mminister indicated in her report that $67.2 million worth of products were replaced by local products.

Fitsum stated that the government’s income increased by 8.6 percent in the quarter and explained that 93.1 billion Birr was collected from tax and non-tax sources.

She also noted that 51 billion was earned from income tax.

According to the Minister’s report, the service sector, including transportation, received 1.2 million dollars in income during the quarter

She further mentioned that permanent employment opportunities were created for more than 420,000 citizens nationwide.