Ethiopia reaffirmed its commitment to deeper regional economic integration on Wednesday, telling a gathering of trade ministers from across the Horn of Africa that closer cooperation is essential to improving cross-border trade and connectivity.
Speaking at the Horn of Africa Initiative Trade Ministers Meeting in Addis Ababa, State Minister of Trade and Regional Integration Tazer Gebregziabher said Ethiopia had placed regional integration at the center of its development strategy and had worked with neighboring countries and international partners to mobilize resources for regional trade corridors and related infrastructure. He said Ethiopia’s domestic economic reforms were designed to complement its regional commitments.
Somalia’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, Gamal Mohamed Hassan, who chaired the meeting, said the Horn occupies a strategically important position linking Africa’s interior to the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, along major maritime trade routes between Europe and Asia. He said the region’s economic performance has not matched that geographic advantage, calling it a gap the initiative must help close, and pointed to Somalia’s own efforts to modernize customs systems and simplify trade procedures for small-scale cross-border traders.
Gebregziabher also stressed that regional trade corridors require coordinated action across every country they pass through, saying no single government can make a corridor efficient by acting alone.
The meeting builds on the Horn of Africa Initiative’s regional trade facilitation roadmap, which has been under revision through consultations involving Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti since earlier this year, and follows a similar push for deeper integration raised at a separate regional dialogue in Jigjiga, Ethiopia, in May.
