Assessing Contributions, Challenges and Prospects of Public Private Partnership in the Development of Industrial Parks in Ethiopia

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to to assess the contribution, challenges and prospects of Public Private Partnership in the development of government constructed Industrial Parks in Ethiopia. The research is descriptive, and it is applied quantitative research design formats. Quantitative method of data collection has been applied to collect data from different secondary data sources on All of 121 industries situated in 13 government constructed Industrial Parks.Descriptive based analysis on the already existing data is made.The findings of the study indicated that industrial parks have started contributing to the national as well as local economy in terms of employment generation and technology transfer,but still they are struggling to servive facing several challenged.Furthermore, the research finding showed that shortage of foreign exchange and problems related to manpower management and utilization as the main constraints faced by the companies.Unexpectldly, absence of security and stability in northern part of Ethiopia began scaring foreign investors and some leading brands have already closed their factories and left from Hawassa Industrial Park. Biden’s administration moved to delist Ethiopia from The African Growth and Opportunity Act which is corenerstone for Foreign Direct Investment attraction to Ethiopia .Essential and mitigation measures need to be taken with immediate effect, otherwise this could be a big blow to the relativey young sector. In general, there is a need for supporting and strengthening the growth of industrial parks by providing special attention to those industries producing export goods using local raw materials and those industries producing fabrics and clothes which can be used as raw materials for apparel and garment factories and local market when deemed necessary.