Dukem, just a short drive south of the capital, is home to Ethiopia’s first industrial park, the Chinese-owned Eastern Industrial Zone (EIZ), and some of the country’s most fertile land. Chinese companies are constructing five industrial zones, while the government plans to have 15 industrial parks nationwide by June 2018. The move, which means expropriating an additional 167 hectares of rural land around Dukem and the relocation of around 300 farmers, has sparked anger among locals and reopened old wounds. “No farmers are protesting the expansion now,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. In Ethiopia, all land is formally owned by the state, and there is no established price for farmland.

Source: Ethiopian News February 01, 2018 13:07 UTC