{{As the whereabouts of Ethiopia’s Prime minister Meles Zenawi remains unknown, Ethiopian government has suspended the provision of foreign currency in a decision that has been linked to the political uncertainties surrounding prime minister Zenawi’s deteriorating health.}}<\/p>\n
A notice to this effect has been issued by the regulator, the National Bank of Ethiopia, to the country’s commercial banks as Addis Ababa also appealed for food aid.<\/p>\n
The country’s foreign currency reserves are running alarmingly low and can only cover the importation of basic goods such as petroleum, medicine and food.<\/p>\n
The measure is likely to lead to a black market boom that would further weaken the country’s import-export trade, observers say, with shortages already being experienced.<\/p>\n
The country’s leading commercial bank has stopped issuing letters of credit–essentially a promise to pay–with fears of a rise in the cost of living.<\/p>\n
Banking in the Horn of Africa nation of about 85 million people is highly centrally regulated.<\/p>\n
Industry insiders argue that massive capital flight and illegal transactions are the main reasons for the rapid depletion of forex reserves.<\/p>\n
One of the fastest growing sub-Saharan Africa countries, Ethiopia’s growth has touched seven per cent annually for the last nine years, according to the IMF.<\/p>\n
Big businesses owned by Mr Meles’ ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) play a key role in the daily operation of the economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{As the whereabouts of Ethiopia’s Prime minister Meles Zenawi remains unknown, Ethiopian government has suspended the provision of foreign currency in a decision that has been linked to the political uncertainties surrounding prime minister Zenawi’s deteriorating health.}} A notice to this effect has been issued by the regulator, the National Bank of Ethiopia, to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[334],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-2886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe-reporter"],"bylines":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2886"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=2886"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=2886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}