Ethiopia will begin the development of three textile parks before July 2019. These centers will be built in: Aysha and Semera near Djibouti border and Assosa, next to Sudanese border. These parks will play a critical role in Ethiopia’s plan to transform its still largely agrarian economy into an industrialised one by 2025, using the textile and garment sector as a key component.

In addition to these facilities, Ethiopia will also develop four agro-industrial parks to capture more value from Ethiopia’s farming output. These will be built in the north eastern regions of Amhara, Oromia, Tigray and SNNPR.

Ethiopia has based its industrialisation effort on the development of low-carbon, tax-exempt “plug & play” industrial parks along development corridors. Ethiopia plans to increase the number of operational industrial parks from the current four to around 30 by 2025, increasing the share of the economy contributed by manufacturing from 5 per cent to 22 per cent.