Ethiopia’s membership to BRICS will potentially benefit it by boosting investment from member states thereby accelerating the overall economic growth, Senior Economist Costantinos Berhe said.
In an exclusive interview with ENA Costantinos said that BRICS is a conglomeration of countries with the fast growing economies; represent more than 40 percent of the world population and 30 percent of the world GDP, with geographical strategic position, and technological advancement.
Economically, the main idea of BRICS is to enhance multilateralism and have the global governance institutions to be accountable to all independent and sovereign countries, he added.
According to him, international financial institutions have deviated from their core mandate of monitoring and financing global economy and building infrastructure for the development of developing countries.
Today BRICS wants to challenge this and of course, they are challenging it already, he indicated, and affirmed “therefore, BRICS wants to bring in development banks that serve the developing nations and not that dictate them.”
China has the biggest purchasing parity in the world and has lifted a billion people out of poverty over the last 30 plus years, Costantinos stated, and added “the kind of Chinese experience can come to developing countries is simply priceless.”
The 15th BRICS Summit approval of Ethiopia as its new member was a plus for us to be included there, he said, and emphasized Ethiopia “would definitely benefit from this in a major way.”
“We have huge amount of agriculture resource in our country, water resources, we have educated young generation that can contribute to the development (of the country). So, they can come and create investments that would be contributing not only to our internal supply chain but also for exports. At the same time, they will exploit all these young people that are coming out of the vocational schools and universities Therefore, I see huge investments coming into this country,” Costantinos pointed out.
The country should be prepared to welcome investment by making sure that the administration system up to the lowest echelon are competent enough to be able to receive investments, administer and support investors with all the necessary support, he added.
Mentioning that Ethiopia has to be investor smart country by fulfilling all the key factors such as infrastructure, security, capital market and investment friendly legal frameworks, he hastened to say “unless we have the main pillars of the market economy, we cannot expect investors to come and invest in this country.”
Furthermore, he pointed out that it is significantly important to put the country’s key development sectors in the hands of professionals even by hiring foreigners.
Ethiopia, which is considered literally the center of Africa, was one of the countries that have been considered by BRICS for multiple factors, he said.
“Historically, Ethiopia was the only member of the League of Nations among African countries…. Ethiopia was the first member of the UN… so we have that history behind this.
Therefore, Addis Ababa being the political and diplomatic hub of Africa, and we have the highest number of embassies next to New York (and Geneva) today. So with these factors, Ethiopia carries a huge weight.
Besides for the past 20 years, Ethiopia’s GDP has been growing 10 plus and of course during the COVID pandemic and after that it is growing at 6 and 7 percent; so it is a growing economy.
It is a major economy; it has natural resources and big population that can develop very fast. That’s what the Chinese would be looking at in recommending Ethiopia to be a member of the BRICS,” the economist elaborated at length.
BRICS is an economic and social foundation which wants to assert multilateralism and develop south-south cooperation, he stated.
Nothing that Ethiopia’s international diplomacy in the UN and AU has to be consistence; Costantinos stressed “we have to maintain our non-alliance status throughout.”
Source: Ethiopian News Agency