The
Government has embarked upon an extensive program of divestiture of state enterprises with a view to curtailing government's role in the production of goods and services. Since early 1995, a total of 125 public
enterprises (including retail businesses, hotels, restaurants and factories) have been privatized under the mode of 100% sales of ownership of the businesses or factories to the private sector. Many additional state
enterprises have been listed for privatization. These include cotton farms and ginneries, yarn mills, textile fabric factories, fiber mills, tanneries, leather goods factories, horticultural farms and fruit and
vegetable processing factories, hotels, food factories and others. Therefore, interested private investors, both domestic and foreign, may contact the Ethiopian Privatization Agency, Fax.: 251-1-513955.
INVESTMENT APPROVAL PROCEDURES
Under the Investment Proclamation No. 37/1996, Article 12, all investors intending to invest in Ethiopia, except domestic investors not investing in areas
qualified for investment incentives, are required to obtain investment permits. Investments to be made by foreign investors, foreign nationals taken for domestic investors, domestic and foreign investors jointly and
investments to be made (in areas eligible for incentives) by domestic investors who are required to obtain trade and operating licenses from concerned federal organs have to be approved by the Ethiopian Investment
Authority.
To qualify for investment permit, an investor is required to submit the following documents:
a completed application form obtained from the EIA;
a project profile;
list of the type and quantity of machinery and equipment intended to be exempted from import duties;
a draft memorandum and articles of
association in the case of a business organization;
in case of expansion or upgrading a brief description of the same and its implementation programme;
in case of planned employment of expatriate staff a
statement on the time and schedule for their replacement by Ethiopians and the training programme designed for such replacement; and
a power of attorney in the case of submission of an application through an agent.
A foreign investor who intends to conclude a technology transfer Agreement related to the investment will be required to submit a draft agreement to the Authority for approval and registration together with the
application to investment permit.
The EIA approves and gives an investment permit in 10 days if the above documents are received in full (and in good order). The Ethiopian Investment Authority renders a one-stop-shop
service which includes investment approval and issuance of investment permit, issuance of trade and operating licenses, approval of expatriate posts and issuance of work permits and other pre-approval services
