Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said the government has no agenda more urgent than issues connected with bringing down the sky-rocketing cost of living in the country. According to ENA, the premier said the government would further continue subsiding major food items as part of the drive to address the problem.

. During a discussion he held with leaders of various trade unions here on Tuesday, Meles said the government of Ethiopia, in collaboration with various stakeholders, had been taking various measures and exerting effort to prevent the rising cost of consumer goods. Meles underlined that the government would step up its efforts of preventing the rising cost of living until the nation assumes a position to combat the problem by registering development. The government alone would not become effective in the prevention and control of the price hike, Meles underscored, and noted that the entire public should actively join hands towards the same cause. The government has increased the salary of civil servants as part of the overall efforts of preventing the rising cost of living, the premier recalled, and said that improving the income of the public through speeding up the overall development of the country is the strategy set by the government. Participants of the discussion pointed out that there prevails wide-ranging maladministration in connection with the provision of plots for construction of residential houses. In his response to the issue, Meles stressed that provision of plots for the construction of residential units should be carried out in an impartial and transparent manner. Meles, on the occasion, mentioned that the major problem being faced in the construction of condominium houses is not the financial constraints but rather limitation of the capacity to carry out the construction works. Efforts are being exerted to address these basic problems, he added.

Ethiopia secures over USD 141mln from export of sesame

Ethiopia secured over USD 141 million from export of sesame during the last nine months, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said. The country secured the stated sum from export of 102,000 tonnes of sesame to the various countries during the first nine months of the current fiscal year, agricultural output marketing department coordinator with the ministry, Asefa Mulugeta indicated. The coordinator made the statement recently at a workshop held in Jimma town of the Oromia State on ‘National coffee contraband and illicit trade’. ENA reported that the income secured during the reported time exceeded that of the income of the previous year of the same period by 17 percent, according to the coordinator. Oilseeds have become the second largest export items of the nation next to coffee during the last nine months, he added.
  
Minister says Ethio-India cooperation steadily growing

Ethiopia and India should look forward to further deepening and expanding their ties to meet the demand of the globalized world, Foreign Affairs Minister Seyoum Mesfin said. ENA's report indicated that with regard to trade and investment cooperation, Seyoum said, the cooperation between the countries in the sectors has been steadily growing.” We expect the new opportunities of quota-free and zero-tariff imports will allow greater Ethiopian penetration of Indian markets,” he added. During the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Ethio-India friendship, he said a large number of Ethiopian students have been attending their studies in various Indian higher learning institutions under India’s Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) program. Several Indian instructors and teachers have also been serving in Ethiopia. India has also been supporting a lot to medical and education sectors under network of Tele-medicine, and Tele-education, pilot projects launched last year. Indian Ambassador to Ethiopia, Gurjit Singh, on his part said economic dimension of Ethio-India relationship has become locomotive for enhanced bilateral relationship. “Over 1.8 billion dollars of private Indian investment largely from small and medium enterprises has chosen to come to Ethiopia. This immense surge of private sector investment into Ethiopia has changed the image of Ethiopia in the Indian mind,” the ambassador said. India has strongly supported Ethiopia’s development goals by providing concessional lines of credit for rural electrification and expansion of the sugar industry, he added.

US adds USD 40mln in emergency food aid

The United States this week released 40 million dollars in emergency aid for the World Food Program (WFP) to help deal with the growing global food crisis affecting the poorest nations including Ethiopia, AFP reported from Washington. The funds from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will be added to 200 million dollars US President George W. Bush authorized on April 14, the State Department said in a statement. "With this additional estimated 240 million dollars, USAID will provide emergency food aid for programs in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Kenya, Haiti, Bangladesh, Somalia, Mauritania, Uganda, and Sudan" through the WFP and private voluntary organizations, the report said quoting the statement. The funds will bring the total emergency food aid provided by USAID, on behalf of the American people, to 1.36 billion dollars since October 2007. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday ordered a top level task force to take on the global crisis caused by rising food prices and urged key producer nations to end export bans, during a meeting in Bern, Switzerland of the heads of 27 key international agencies. WFP had estimated it needed 3.1 billion dollars to feed the world hungry in 2008, but has asked for an extra 755 million due to the sharp jump in food prices. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has requested 1.7 billion dollars to boost farming in the hungriest nations, as world food stocks dropped to their lowest level since 1980.