Doing Business in Ethiopia: 2012 Country Commercial Guide for U.S.
Companies
April
30, 2012
State-owned
enterprises and ruling party-owned entities dominate major sectors of the economy. There is a state monopoly or state-run
dominance in sectors such as telecommunications, power, banking, insurance, air
transport, shipping, and sugar. In addition,
the government controls importation of staple foods such as grains and
oil. Ruling party affiliated "endowment"
companies have a strong presence in the ground transport, fertilizer, and textile
sectors. Both state-owned enterprises
and "endowment" companies dominate the cement sector.
State-owned
enterprises have considerable advantages over private firms, particularly in
the realm of Ethiopia's regulatory and bureaucratic environment, including ease
of access to credit and speedier customs clearance. Local business owners as well as foreign
investors complain of the lack of a level playing field when it comes to
state-owned and party-owned businesses. While
there is no report of credit advancement to these entities, there are
indications that they receive incentives such as priority foreign exchange
allocation, preferences in government tenders, and marketing assistance. Ethiopia publishes aggregate financial data
of state-owned enterprises, but detailed information is not included in the
national budget.
Corporate
governance of state-owned enterprises is structured and monitored by a board of
directors composed of senior government officials and politically-affiliated
individuals. In 2010, the Ethiopian
Government "corporatized" state-owned enterprise Ethiopian
Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) by turning over its management to
France-Telecom per a two-year contract. As
part of this process, a new company, Ethio Telecom (ET), was formed to replace
ETC. Similar to the ―corporatization‖ of
ETC, a tender for the management of Ethiopian Electric Power Company (EEPCO)
was advertised in 2011, though no winner had been announced as of January 2012.
Read full report here: Doing
Business in Ethiopia: 2012 Country Commercial
Guide for U.S. Companies