Ethiopia: Ambassador Encourages Cooperation With China

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to China, Ambassador Seyoum Mesfin was interviewed on CCTV at the weekend (January 13th). His subject was the growing bilateral relations between China and Ethiopia and Ambassador Seyoum stressed Ethiopia had benefited a great deal from cooperation between the two countries.

Ethiopia, he said, had learnt from China's development experience, noting that many developing nations including Ethiopia had been inspired by China's experiences and the way by which it had pulled 400 million people out of poverty in such a short period.

Ambassador Seyoum noted: "The agricultural technical cooperation centers and the manufacturing technical centers established with [the support of] China are hugely transforming our human capacity building," underlining the importance of introducing modern agricultural technology to boost Ethiopia's agriculture.

Ambassador Seyoum also praised Chinese assistance in harnessing Ethiopia's water resources, pointing out that Ethiopia has taken tremendous strides in utilizing its water resources over the last decade and citing its effort in building one of the biggest dams in the world- the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam - mobilizing its citizens at home and abroad. The Ambassador emphasized the centrality of ensuring participation of the people in political, economic and social transformation in democratizing institutions. He noted that the idea of universality might be intrinsic to democracy but each country had its own peculiarities in application; democracy, he added, was a property of this or that country.