Ethiopia’s Sectoral Economic Growth, Sustainability
At the end of the 2008/09 fiscal year, for the first time in Ethiopian history, agriculture gave way to service as the biggest contributor to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Experts argue this was unhealthy because economic theories suggest a healthy structural transformation of a growing economy shifts focus from agriculture to industry and then to service. That was why the service sector’s extraordinary growth was like “putting the cart before the horse”. Accordingly the administration of the late Prime Minster Meles Zenawi took a series of policy measures to adjust the growing economic imbalance. Samson Hailu, EBR’s Research Editor, writes about the implications of these policy measures for the current business slowdown in the country.