A building of the new headquarters of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) is seen in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Feb. 13, 2022. (Xinhua/Wang Ping)
The Ethiopian parliament approved a budget of about 15.1 billion U.S. dollars for the country's 2022/2023 fiscal year that began on Friday.
ADDIS ABABA, July 8 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopian parliament on Thursday approved a budget of 786.6 billion Ethiopian birr (about 15.1 billion U.S. dollars) for the country's 2022/2023 fiscal year that will begin on July 8, 2022.
The Ethiopian House of People's Representatives (HoPR), the lower house of the parliament, approved the proposed budget that was tabled to it by the Council of Ministers (CoM) a month ago.
The budget will be used to implement the country's ten-year development plan, support national security, rehabilitate displaced citizens, reconstruct destroyed infrastructure as well as for payment of debts, said Desalegn Wedaje, Chairperson of the Plan, Budget and Finance Affairs Standing Committee of the House while presenting the proposed budget.
Out of the total budget, 6.63 billion U.S. dollars have been set aside as regular expenditure while 4.19 billion U.S. dollars have been allocated for capital spending, Wedaje said.
Photo taken on Feb. 21, 2022 shows part of Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (Xinhua)
According to the chairperson, 4.02 billion U.S. dollars of the total budget are to go for subsidizing regional governments while 269.12 million U.S. dollars of the budget are to be used for accomplishing sustainable development goals.
Out of the total approved budget, 4.3 billion U.S. dollars are expected to be covered by domestic sources while the balance is to be covered by foreign loans, he said.
The budget has seen a 16.59 percent increase when compared to that in the previous fiscal year. ■
