Israel Heightening Multifaceted Cooperation with Ethiopia: Ambassador Morav

ENA, February 4/2020 Israel, which has excellent relations with Ethiopia, aims to heighten its cooperation in agriculture, aquaculture as well as cyber security and technology, Ambassador Morav said.

In an exclusive interview with ENA, Israel’s Ambassador to Ethiopia Raphael Morav said “the relations are excellent, but we always aim higher and strengthen the ties even more.”

Israel has many investments in Ethiopia; but “we are aiming to increase these investment and economic cooperation. In terms of cooperation in development, we are very much succeeding,” he added.

According to him, relations between the countries are progressing very well in the political,   economic and development cooperation spheres.

“We are now to launch a new cooperation in agriculture. That has to do with the government initiative to grow wheat in lowlands. We had last week a survey expert committee that came from Israel to see the sights. We are going to establish a center of excellence to demonstrate irrigation technique in arid and semiarid climate,” the ambassador elaborated.

Moreover, Israel is trying to assist the government in the development of aquaculture.

Speaking about the future prospects in transforming Ethiopian agriculture, particularly wheat production, Morav pointed out:

“We are cooperating with the Ethiopian authorities, mainly Ministry of Agriculture and Institute of Agricultural Research, on the culture of wheat in lowlands; and I personally have visited the Afar region and the demonstration fields that already exist. We have discussed with the authorities about how to expand this into demonstration fields to up scale  production.”

He stated that the two sides have continued to engage in the implementation of the recently signed agreements between the countries.

“We are trying to assist the government in the development of aquaculture, a sector that we see has a lot of potential, and there is a lot that can be achieved with not so many investment. So we are willing also to corporate with the government in this,” Morav said.

He explained that the aim of boosting wheat productivity in the lowlands is to substitute import, ensure food security and save foreign currency.

The ambassador noted that innovation and technology, ecosystem, and regional security are the other areas the two countries cooperate in.

Morav noted that Israel and Ethiopia are not very distant. “Things that happen in the Middle East impact the Horn of Africa and vice versa,” he underscored. 

“So there is certainly ground for cooperation" in many areas.