FSD Eying Investment Potentials in Ethiopia, Peace Agreement Will Put Economic Growth Back on Track: CEO

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November 5/2022/ENA/ Fonds Souverain de Djibouti (FSD) —Djibouti Sovereign Fund is exploring investment potentials in industry, real estate, agribusiness, and tourism— committing 20 per cent of the fund to Ethiopia, and the peace agreement signed between the Government of Ethiopia and TPLF will put country's economic growth back on track, Djibouti Sovereign Fund CEO Slim Feriani said.

In an exclusive interview with ENA, Djibouti Sovereign Fund CEO Slim Feriani said that Ethiopia and Djibouti’s strong strategic partnership will have significant impact in accelerating economic integration.

FSD aims to diversify and modernize the country's economy as well as boost the growth of the country by relying on a competitive private sector and generating wealth for future generations, he added.

Though FSD started recently, we are fast tracking things and there are very low hanging fruits and quick wins that we're working on in and outside of Djibouti, he pointed out.

The mandate of the sovereign wealth fund  as said by his excellency President of Djibouti Ismail Omar Guelleh, is that up to 60 percent of the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Djibouti could be invested outside of Djibouti with twenty percent that has got to be with Ethiopia one way or another. So there is no stronger message in terms of the strong belief in the brotherly relationship,” Feriani revealed.

According to him, the aim of Sovereign Wealth Fund of Djibouti is diversifying the risks by engaging in international investment.

We are exploring sector wise; I mean the things where we can benefit [is from sectors]that we don't have, for example, in Djibouti the industrial sector is not much of an industry manufacturing industry and there is here; and that is an obvious area but it could be in other areas. To be honest, I have seen some really impressive real estate development,” he pointed out.

Both Ethiopia and Djibouti will benefit from becoming as a hub for the rest of Africa in terms of air, railway and road, he stated, adding that there is a lot of infrastructure that can be further utilized.

Ethiopia has world class hotels in terms of tourism, he said, and noted “who knows, maybe some operators from here could be interested or we would be interested in also linking up with some of the best breed as inputs.

Speaking of the recent peace agreement signed in South Africa to end the conflict in the northern part of the country, the CEO said:

In terms of risk, yes the peace treaty reduces the risk. Now for us, Djibouti we perceive the risk of Ethiopia always lower than anyone else because you know we feel far more comfortable. No matter irrespective of, you know, good, bad times but today it shows that the risk has reduced for everyone. So, we believe the next two, three, four, five years, we're going to see back Ethiopia on track into the economic growth,” Feriani elaborated.

FSD aims to diversify and modernize the country's economy as well as boost the growth of the country by relying on a competitive private sector and generating wealth for future generations. Key state-owned enterprises-from utilities, and logistics to telcom - are now its portfolio to drive their modernization.

Ethiopian News Agency
2023