EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is reported as is by WIC, Woyanne’s own news web site. By proudly reporting about this latest land give away, Woyannes are saying to the people of Ethiopia, ‘go suck your thumb, we’ll do what we want with your land.’
(Walta Information Service) ADDIS ABABA — Saudi Arabia, which is making efforts to provide food security for its nationals, can look up to Ethiopia where huge tracts of unutilized agricultural land are available for growing cereals, according to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
A Saudi ministerial delegation, which visited Ethiopia to explore the prospects of investing in agriculture, is impressed by the country’s huge potential and as a follow up sending a team of experts to conduct specialized studies, said Zenawi who spoke in this exclusive interview with Arab News on a variety of economic issues ranging from rising oil prices and inflation to his country’s bilateral trade relations with Saudi Arabia.
Following are excerpts:
Saudi Arabia is engaged in providing food security. A Saudi ministerial delegation has visited your country in this connection. Could you throw light on this?
Saudi Arabia has evinced interest in investing in agriculture, particularly in production of cereals, and has been looking at various options. One of the countries they are looking at is Ethiopia, which has a lot of unutilized land, particularly in the lowland areas of the country where all sorts of agricultural products can be grown. The Saudi delegation studied the prospects of investing in agriculture in this country. We told them we would be very eager to provide hundreds of thousands of hectares of agricultural land for investment, particularly for cereal production. There is a broad agreement and understanding and this will be followed by visits by Saudi experts to conduct specific studies for investment.
What are the existing Saudi investments in Ethiopia?
Most of the Saudi investments have been in manufacturing and hospitality sectors. This has been the focus so far, but we expect a sizeable increase in the Kingdom’s investment in agriculture as a result of its decision to invest in cereals.
What are the other potential areas available for Saudi investment?
The manufacturing sector is promising, especially textiles, leather, leather products and iron bars. In fact, all sectors of manufacturing are open. Investment in infrastructure is also something we are looking for. Real estate development and particularly the hospitality sector including hotels and tourist places, as well as agriculture and agro processing industries are among the other potential areas.
What is the existing level of trade and investment between the two countries?
Saudi Arabia is one of our top three trading partners. Our trade volume is $1 billion, although much of the trade balance is in favor of the Kingdom. The trade gap is about half a billion dollars. We mostly import oil and petroleum products and export coffee, meat and other agricultural products. About 240 Saudi companies have been given the investment license. These companies including those who are operational are expected to invest $2.5 billion. Saudi Arabia is our very important investment partner. Economically, we have solid and fast growing relations.
What has been the impact of rising oil prices?
The dramatic increase in oil prices has hit Ethiopia very hard. Our oil import bill over the past three years has increased by over a billion dollars. This amounts to 3 percent of our GDP. That has upset our balance of payment very significantly. It has created a huge pressure on our balance of payment and complicated the inflationary issue. We are trying to tackle this problem by increasing our exports so that we can pay for our increased import bill, and improving agricultural production so that we can dampen our food prices. We are importing some food from abroad to check the rising trend of our agricultural prices. We are importing wheat. We are no doubt growing wheat but due to an inflationary pressure we are bringing more wheat from abroad to flood the market so that the rising trend of prices in the country can be checked.
How high-level exchange of business visits has benefited your country?
We have had frequent exchanges by leaders at high levels. My assessment is that these high level visits have contributed a lot to the fast growing economic partnership and contributed a lot to the political understanding that we currently enjoy. I expect such exchanges to continue. We are expecting a high level ministerial delegation to visit us in October. I would expect a similar high-level visit from Ethiopia to Saudi Arabia.
23 thoughts on “Saudi Arabia joins in the Ethiopian land grab”
Woyane is selling Ethiopian land piece by piece to forieners to produce wheat for themselves while over 10 million of our ppl are starving to death.
http://oromantic.com/2008/07/26/at-the-auction-block/
What do you call this?
I think I don’t exactly know what we are waiting while the whole Ethiopia is divided and given to neighborhood counties and individual investors that are in favor of the weyane regime, by the way how many of us know that the government of china has bought many lands in addis ababa and other parts of the country along with the huge businesses that they deal with the meles seytanwi regime. Do we all know that many regions of Ethiopia have been almost given to a lot of people? Even, recently we heard the land given to Sudan and Djibouti. Major areas of agricultural lands have been given to the president and wife of Djibouti in the name of investment. Now we just found out that Saudi millioneries have taken their own portion of land from Ethiopia. As a mentioned above the Chinese government and business firms have taken their own piece of land in the name of investment. I don’t know for how long we keep leaking our lips every day after we hear the daily atrocities of weyane. Why don’t we organize ourselves in any political parties that are clear and transparent features along with their best goal to fight weyane. THERE IS NOT GOING TO BE A BETTER TIME TO FIGHT WEYANE OTHER THAN NOW…Enough is Enough……
Death to weyane members and supporters.
Let me get this straight. As the people of Ethiopia are dying of hunger, the Ethiopian government is giving away land to Saudi Arabia, so the Saudis can provide food security for it nationals. What a paradox. What’s even funnier is the fact the Ethiopian government has the nerves so justify its actions by classifying the huge tracts of agricultural land as “unutilized.” No wonder Ethiopia remains dependent on foreign aid. And what ever happened to the billions of dollars of foreign aid the government received last year.
Mark my word this is only the begining. The whole of Ethiopia have been grabbed whole sale by sheer force of arms some 18 years ago. What naturally follows is to put up a profitable retail trading buisess of the wholeland piece by piece.
The business is not unplaned but already planned and meant to be traded by the TPLF who wone the war and gained entitlement to the land and other resources. Since the grabing of the human and natural resource, wayanes have kept their private property(Ethiopia) both by force of arms as well as by cunningly dividing, weakening and disempowering any emerging and viable political contenders.
So, the role of the Ethiopians is to sit back and enjoy seeing wayanes enjoying themselves and geting richer and richer by each passing days.
Saudi Arabia is one of the hiding place when Meless flee at the end of his day. Therefore, it is no wonder that whatever he does on the Ethiopian land is solily depends in his own will and the persistant fear of the people
You are for sale too, and your sister and your mother and your father. When you are weak, everyone will walk all over you. Lets get serious and start working hard. There is still time if you want to work. Crying ain’t gonna cut it.
I do no understand why people are complaining about.People
are starving in Ethiopia not because of lack of land but
lack of modern agricaltural practice.What’s Ethiopia
opening up for foreign investors? Ask youselves whether
huge invstment by the Saudis in unused land would help or
hurt poor Ethiopians.
I do not know where these remnant writers come from
but in the U.S,states give tax incentives to attract foreign
investore be it agricaltural or industrial.
My Lord have mercy to Ethiopia! it is very sad, to see this is hapening.
This sounds like a dumb investment for the Saudis, are they to expect that while they take the cereals out of Ethiopia the people of Ethiopia will just fold their hands and watch while they are starving? To Woyanne this is one more of way of making money, they could care less if the people of Ethiopia starved to death while the Saudis are growing food for their nationals, as we all know hunger is big business for Woyanne, whenever Woyanne gets relief aid the majority of the aid goes to Woyanne bosses and their huge military while very little goes to the hungry.
I urge all Ethiopians to ask this simple question, why is Eritrea not mentioned in any hunger reports by western media? The answer is simple, Eritrea kicked out USAID and other hunger merchant NGOs and embarked on food self sufficiency and in a few years Eritrea is able to feed its people and soon will export hundreds of thousands of tons of food to other countries, as everyone knows Eritrea doesn’t get as much rain as Ethiopia and doesn’t have permanent rivers but it managed to feed itself by transforming traditional agriculture to modern one in a few years, this was not done by foreigners or slave labor but by planning well and building the necessary infrastructure. Time for Ethiopians to put pressure on G-7 to unite all Ethiopian opposition and kick Woyanne out before they destroy Ethiopia.
Mr Desta,
Let me say this, if the government comes to your house while you sleeping in side your house and demolish it with your personal belongings and after kicks you out on street with your children, and the plot of your land advertised for auction, how could you react about it or could say it is good let it be done ? Yes when your country’s destruction benefited you, it doesn’t matter let the rest of the people go to hell ?
It is not only land deals brothers and sisters! the wohabbis are in full force in Ethiopia to spread their idealogy. Who can they trust other than weyane for the spread of their extremism in this beautiful ancient land and people. Don’t forget how they brain washed the poor people Afghanistan and other poor countries who bought their “hidden” missions. God save the people of Ethiopia from the extremists of the wohabbis!
Thany you Ethiopian Review for exposing the Woyannee gangsters again. I agree 100% with your statement below:
“Woyannes are saying to the people of Ethiopia, ‘go suck your thumb, we’ll do what we want with your land.'”
The Woyaness have been showing their disrespect to every Ethiopian very loudly recently, to name a few are: sending Teddy Afro to jail, including an independet journalist and a lawyer; giving land to Dijibouti, Sudan and now Saudi Arabia.
Our humilation has no end. The Woyanee Tigraians are now showing their true colours and they are acting as a true colonial empire. Yes, we had never been colonized before but there is no doubt now that we are Woyanee Tigrain’s colony. If this is not colonization, show me one.
It is even more painful to be colonized by people who speak and look like you, no matter what they do nobody will come and rescue you.
Call a spade a spade: We are Woyanee Tigrai’s colony.
I dont see the problem of having investers to utilize the untouched resources of the country. The empty pride has not brought us a piece of bread,we are still starving ….our backward farming system that has been there for centuries (Berena gebere..)coud not take us anywhere. It is not the saudi’s that extracted oil in saudi but European investers …the same goes here
It reminds me of, when Mengistu H.Mariam was selling one kilo sugar for 25 cents, to bring foreign currency . I seen in my own eyes: when, millions of kuntal sugar was exported via Djibouti. Because The mad man of Ethiopia needed the money to buy military hardware back then. While, People all over the country were making a half kilometer line to get one kilo of sugar for a family of ten, for a month. Now, the mad man Meles is doing the same thing. No surprise at all, they’re two of the same faces of a coin. Zero Le Zero!
It is shame that we just sitt watch ethiopia land give to foriegen also ethiopian people divded so meles government can stay long in power, when 10 mollion ethiopian starvine need food instead off securing his people tplf government is looking to help his saudi people we all know that meles doesn’t care about ethiopian he is not ethiopia i gues he think he doing good to ethiopia by giving land he called investment wow never heard may god blessed ethiopia.
#7 desta says:
Desperate Wayane!
When old white colonialists came to Africa and grabbed mother Africa’s entire continenetal land mass for agricultural production and exportation of such products for feeding their colonial mother land, they also said just like you are saying here, “Africans are not straving due to lack of fertile land but due to lack of modern agricultural production.” Shame on them!
As a brainless black colonialist you modified and applied the same statement by writing, “People are starving in Ethiopia not because of lack of land but lack of modern agricaltural practice.”SHAME ON YOU!!
Ethiopian is starving due to the primitive dictatorship using corrupt and bad governance that is incapable of using anything modern and for the benefit of the people.
After all starvation is also one of the warfare tactics for breaking the back bones of the Ethiopian people inorder to keep then silent and enslaved in the face of reckless oppression and highway robbery.
Ex-dictator Idi Amin Dada of Uganda highjacked an Israeli transport airplane to Entebe,Uganda in 1976 inorder to please the Saudis and others from whom he got excellent and friendly refugee status after being chased away from power.
So does Pm.Melles distributing land to foreign governments while Ethiopians are starving to death and in an apparent flirtation for help to the dictator when his dictatorial regime comes to kiss the ground at its ending celebration ritual. He knows that the end will come sooner or later.
That is why he is proactively running while the sun is still shining and the opposition parties divided and bickering on petty trivialities devoid of the BIG PICTURE VISION.
Ethiopians need not only open their eyes but also act in unity within diversity and prevent these robbers from leading Ethiopian down the drain.
Guys this is a good investment in my opinion. It will improve our import-export activies. It also creats job opportunities. We should not take everything woyanne is doing negatively. Afterall we’re looking for peace and better life for our people.
God bless Ethiopia!
Visitor Workeneh
You are talking about Ethiopian government. There is no Ethiopian govenment in Ethiopia today. What you have is occupation
#17 Tizibt new tirfu,
You must be one of the architects and beneficieries of the robbery struggling to pamper dying dictatorship.
That dictatorship has had some 18 years of ruling life span under whom Ethiopia have come to be known as a death musium.
If all what Wayane has produced for the last 18 years is mainly death and distruction alone, what makes you think now that it may change course without any trace of changing the dictatorial system of primitive bad governance that essentially produces all the sahmeful and unending poverty and starvations?
Guys this is good investment in my opinion ?
Oh yeah “Saynorat abadira setiqabel motechi yachi diha” ?
As history had it, we fed Saudis duning their hunger period, that time we produced all, this time they will use our land to produce and feed themslves.
This makes me angry, bitter and its actully making me cry right now.. I left mother land when I was only 13 years old… and only be back once. but I LOVE mother land. I dont know why we just fold our hands and sit, as far as I’m concerned I know as soon as I finish my Uni, I’m packing up go to back to the mother land and fight for a change!!!!
Mengsu meni bedelen ke-melese gar senawodadrewwi melese is killing us alive….