Poor Farmer

International Monetary Fund October 1, 2012 On September 12, 2012, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV consultation with Ethiopia. 1 Background Ethiopia’s macroeconomic performance in 2011/12 has been mixed. Strong, broad-based growth continues at a pace of about 7 percent and poverty reduction measured by poverty head count declined from 38.7 to 29.6 percent during the six years to 2010/11. However, inflation surged to 40 percent in August 2011, largely reflecting a combination of factors including loose monetary policy, and high global food prices but has eased to about 21 percent in June 2012 supported by a slowdown in global food and fuel price inflation and the implementation of the base money nominal anchor. Despite the continued robust increases in goods exports and remittances, the current account deteriorated in the first half of 2011/12 contrasting the surplus recorded i...

Robert Passikoff Forbes October 2, 2012 So you’re sitting on a bench kind of putting off going to work or at least steeling yourself for it, and a spaceship lands. Out comes some sort of creature. It/he/she sits down and asks what liquid refreshment you are absorbing. “It’s coffee,” you say. “What’s that?” it/he/she asks. OK, play along. You buy the premise, you buy the bit. As most beings in the known universe do know, coffee is a brewed beverage with a distinct aroma and flavor. It’s prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffea plant. The beans are inside coffee ‘cherries’ that grow on trees. For most, coffee has a stimulating effect due to its high caffeine content. They don’t say coffee is the best thing to douse the sunrise, for nothing! When it comes to production, coffee comes from nearly 80 countries on this planet, but most comes from Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, Colombia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras. When it comes to consumption, it looks...