Haile Gebrselassie, the famed Ethiopian long-distance runner, has urged East African countries to focus on improving sports infrastructure, citing a report from the Daily Nation. He believes that better stadiums and sports facilities would attract European athletes, boosting revenue for the region.
Legendary long-distance runner Haile Gebrselassie urges East African nations to invest in improved stadiums and sports facilities
Gebrselassie mentioned that many European athletes are eager to train in countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia, but the lack of proper sports facilities prevents them from doing so.
He argued that improving sports infrastructure would attract more athletes, who could combine vacations with training, thereby generating additional revenue for East African nations.
Haile calls for upgrading of sports facilities in East Africa
Amane finished second in Boston final mile thriller
In an incredibly close race that wasn’t decided until the final few minutes, Obiri disposed of one of the strongest women’s fields ever assembled for the Boston Marathon.
Kenyan Obiri, world marathon champion Gotytom Gebreslase, Ethiopian record-holder Amane Beriso, Amsterdam course record-holder Angela Tanui, 2020 Tokyo champion Lonah Salpeter, Eritrean record-holder Nazret Weldu and 2021 London champion Joyciline Jepkosgei were all in the leading pack until the final go.
Gebreslase and Weldu had fallen out of the pack with five miles to go, and the lead pack was reduced further to just six women at 23 miles: Obiri, Salpeter, Beriso, Jepkosgei, Ethiopia’s Ababel Yeshaneh and USA’s Emma Bates.
Jepkosgei and Bates started to fade in the last few miles, while Yeshaneh tripped and fell, only to rejoin the lead pack soon after. Salpeter was the next to fade, leaving just Obiri, Beriso and Yeshaneh to battle it out for the victory.
With 2:17 on the clock, Obiri and Beriso had broken free from Yeshaneh. About 90 seconds later, Obiri embarked on a long drive for the finish line. With occasional glances over her shoulder, the Olympic silver medallist maintained a healthy gap ahead of Beriso and went on to finish in 2:21:38.
Beriso took second place in 2:21:50 and Salpeter overtook Yeshaneh in the closing stages to claim third place in 2:21:57, three seconds ahead of the Ethiopian. Bates was fifth in 2:22:10, making her the top US finisher in either of the races.
Ethiopia’s debt distress signaled to drop from its 9 year highs
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts that Ethiopia’s external debt GDP ratio will drop further unlike the previous estimation. The debt stock is said to hit under the 20 percent of GDP mark for the first time in nine years.
A week ago, the IMF published its Regional Economic Outlook titled, “The big funding squeeze” for Sub Saharan Africa which was a revision and relook of its forecasts projected in last year’s report.
In the report, the international organization revised the economic growth of Ethiopia from its October 2022 estimation.
For instance, the latest report stated that the Ethiopian economy has grown by 6.4 percent, which increased from the October forecast of 3.8 percent. Similarly it has that forecasted the country will have a growth of 6.1 percent in 2023 unlike the October estimation of 5.3 percent.
According to the report Ethiopia’s external debt to GDP ratio has also shriveled from the previous projection to 18.2 percent for 2023. In the previous estimation IMF forecasted that the country external debt will stand at 22.4 for this year. This is said to come in light of government’s struggle on the acute foreign currency resource shortage, which nonetheless has been met with strong commitment to settle external loans on due dates.
According to the IMF forecast, the country’s foreign currency reserve is stated as 0.6 months in 2023 and it was even signaled that it may further deteriorate in the 2024 to drop to only two weeks.
This similarly has been catalyzed by the government commitment and low inflow of fresh loans which allowed the external debt stock to drop sharply in the past three years, particularly in the past two budget years.
Likewise in this budget year that started July 2022, the country is servicing huge amount of money for loans that it took in the past, while the inflow is lower compared with the outflow.
According to the estimation, the country debt servicing will sharply increase in these coming two year unless the country gets restructuring from lenders.
Recently, the Ministry of Finance disclosed that in the coming budget year that the government major priority will be in debt servicing.
The growing settlement has led the government to get debt restructures and access for fresh loans that was previously dry as part of the pressure on the government following the conflict which sprang in the northern part of Ethiopia.
At the beginning of 2021, the government declared that it would see debt re-profiling through a Common Framework that was launched by the G20 countries in late 2020. This however did not pan out as expected.
The IMF forecast indicated that the country’s external debt will stand at 15.8 percent of the GDP by 2024. If the country’s debt were to stand at per the projection it would be the first time for it to hit the less than 20 percent or one fifth of the GDP mark after the 2014/15 budget year.
About nine years ago, the country’s external debt was 18.8 percent of the GDP and that jumped to 21.9 percent in the 2015/16 and continued on its sharp increment despite the government cutting access to commercial loans starting from 2017 at a time when the country was entering the high risk of external debt distress category.
However, the country has seen a reduction in external debt to GDP ratio in the past three years from the ratio of about 30 percent.
Wheat production focus shifts to local use
Ethiopia will not indulge in cross border wheat supply despite great successes registered in recent harvest seasons, Capital has learned.
Earlier in the beginning of the harvest season, the government had disclosed that it will commence export of wheat, with the sector experts signaling that it would take a considerable amount of time before the grain is shipped across the country’s borders.
The wheat production success in recent periods has been attributed to the use of off season harvest and cultivation of the grain in new areas that previously did not produce wheat.
Thus far, the government through the Ethiopian Trading Businesses Corporation (ETBC), a public enterprise that was importing wheat to stabilize the market, has sold the grain to the World Bank and World Food Programme.
Recently Legesse Tulu, Minister for Government Communication Service, disclosed that the World Bank bought 127,000 metric tons of wheat from Ethiopia while the UN agency bought 35,000 tons of wheat.
According to sector experts and exporters who are looking to start supply for their buyers, except the stated volume of the product, the government has not made available any additional grain.
Recently Eyob Tekalign, State Minister of Finance, said that the export was done via ETBC, which bought the product from farmers. This was done in close followed up by the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and a team organized under the National Macro Economy Committee.
“It will not be continuing like this. The team and MoF followed the case diligently because it was a new scheme but in the future, the commodity shall be sold through the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) or directly from farmers to exporters,” he added.
ECX had announced that it is under preparation to commence wheat trade under its electronic floor.
The trading floor also expressed that it does not have any expectation of the product to be out for export in the coming months. According to the information that Capital obtained, the wheat that was sold to the two organizations was supplied for local aid only.
“As far as my knowledge, the product has not crossed the border,” opined one of the exporters that Capital spoke to with regards to the export of the new emerging agricultural commodity.
Different reports indicated that overall, Ethiopia boosted its total wheat production from 6.86 million tonnes in 2020/21 to 8.2 million tonnes in 2021/2022. Effort is also said to be well underway to produce over 52 million quintals of wheat with irrigation by July, 2023.
As a result, Ethiopia has not imported commercial wheat as from last year. The country previously had allocated up to USD one billion for wheat import, while the effort taken in the past three years has reduced the import volume.
