Addis Ababa looks to the East for a massive Addis Tomorrow Special Economic Zone project whose construction has just been launched through ATID, a joint venture between the Addis Ababa City Administration and China Communications Construction Company (CCCC).
The venture is the latest in a slew of development projects being undertaken in Addis Ababa under the administration of Mayor Adanech Abiebie and the Office of the Prime Minister. Observers worry the undertaking fails to take into account the high cost of living and unmet demand for affordable housing in the city, arguing that officials would be wise to reassess their priorities.
Dubbed Addis Tomorrow Investment and Development PLC, the Phase I Pilot of the joint venture covers a sprawling plot in the capital’s Gotera neighborhood, in the Nifas Silk-Lafto District. It will reportedly feature facilities dedicated to trade, finance, education, and culture as well as upscale residential spaces.
Tax incentives and foreign exchange benefits are also expected to be part of the preferential policies encapsulated in Addis Tomorrow, a multi-billion project that purports to establish “a global-facing East African international exhibition and exchange, and become a new engine driving the future development of Addis Ababa.”
The joint venture has established ATID (Addis Tomorrow Investment and Development PLC), which will take charge of construction on the multi-billion Birr project.
Repeated instances of relocation and land appropriation in recent years have dimmed the public opinion on ventures such as the ongoing Corridor Development Project, and a growing number of people express dissatisfaction and concern over misplaced priorities amidst growing economic hardships.
Hundreds of thousands of people have already been dislocated and resettled in the peripheries of the city, with some even having been sent to neighboring city administrations, due to the ongoing two-phase corridor and riverside development projects, as well as the massive hilltop Chaka Project.
“[The SEZ] is just one more lavish and costly project being imposed on the people at a time when they have had to tighten their purse strings due to economic downturns and squalor,” says an economic analyst who spoke to The Reporter anonymously.
The analyst says the administration should instead focus on efforts aimed at redistributing wealth, rather than helping wealth to concentrate in the hands of a privileged few.
How many families will have to move to make way for the SEZ is not yet clear.
