Ethiopia cabinet endorses opening of stock market: Prime Minister

Ethiopia’s cabinet on Tuesday endorsed the establishment of a stock market, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed tweeted.

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The finance ministry said in June it had drafted a bill to create a stock market authority. It was not immediately clear if this was the bill passed on Tuesday.

Abiy’s office tweeted a statement saying that a capital market would ease Ethiopia’s dependency on foreign finance.

Since Abiy took office in 2018, the government has slowly begun introducing economic reforms, including preparing to open state-controlled sectors such as telecommunications to foreign investors.

Ethiopia is Africa’s second-most populous nation and its economy has in the past decade been one of the world’s fastest-growing, due mainly to heavy state spending on infrastructure.