Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed noted that the government’s prevention measures to control inflation rate from exceeding 30 percent in this Ethiopian fiscal year (EFY) amid international challenge and pressure is a very good start.
The House of Peoples’ Representatives (HPR) held its 28 regular session today.
During the session, members of the parliament(MPs) posed questions on overall performance of the government including the rising inflation, which in particular is highly affecting people with low income.
The premier said that the government has carried out various activities in different sectors to reduce inflation.
Pointing out that the inflation has been stubborn for many countries to control, the government has been undertaking activities which were able to prevent the inflation rate from rising above 30 percent in the fiscal year amid international challenges and pressure.
Despite efforts of containing inflation from exceeding 30 percent, food inflation reached 43.9 percent, he said.
"But we were able to reduce it to 28.5 percent this year," the prime minister stated.
Abiy added that "the general inflation has reached 37 percent and was reduced to 30 percent. This is not enough as we do not have citizens who could shoulder 30 percent inflation."
The prime minister underscored that more works will be done in the future to reduce inflation in Ethiopia.
The achievement in preventing inflation from exceeding 30 percent while overcoming international challenges and pressures of the year is a very good start. There is hope that this will improve further next year, Abiy said.
According to him, activities are being carried out in different sectors, including in the agriculture sector, to stabilize inflation.
At least 2 million additional hectares of land will be cultivated in this crop season and agricultural production is expected to increase, Abiy stated.
According to him, it is for the first time for the country to cultivate more than 15 million hectares of land.
Moreover, he pointed out that the annual budget for the upcoming Ethiopian Fiscal Year was prepared in a different way than the previous years in order to fight the inflation growth.
He also expressed his hope that the Group 20 countries in their upcoming meeting in India are expected to pass decisions on debt restructuring and flow of additional financial resource to the international financial institutions to respond to the problem and agenda of many countries.
Source: Ethiopian News Agency