Addis Fortune (Addis Ababa)
The Ethiopian parliament has approved a 320.8 billion Br budget for the coming fiscal year in its final meeting before the conclusion of the current fiscal year. The amount is 17pc higher than the previous fiscal year.
Out of the total budget, 114.7 billion Br will be used for capital expenditure, 81.8 billion Br for recurrent expenditure and 117.3 billion Br to subsidise regional states. The remaining seven billion Br will be allocated for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) projects.
The new budget reveals that the country’s budget deficit widens to 53.8 billion Br, which accounts for 2.5pc of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Furthermore, the new budget aims to boost revenue collection by 26 billion Br to 196 billion Br for the next fiscal year.
About 61pc of the budget will be used to finance infrastructure developments such as road, education, agriculture, water, health and rural electrification projects.