Addis Ababa — Ethiopia's Ministry of Transport and Logistics is carrying out a reform on road and rail transportation systems with a view to realizing the nation's growth and prosperity.

The Ministry conducted a workshop on the reform of Ethiopia's rail and road transport in collaboration with the World Bank.

The workshop mainly focused on addressing bottlenecks in administration, service, policy and infrastructure of the sector.

Speaking at the occasion, Transport and Logistics State Minister, Dengue Boru said that the logistics sector has a significant role for the success of Ethiopia's journey towards development and prosperity.

However, he added that if the performance of logistics is not effective and go in parallel with the rapidly growing economy of the country, it impedes the intended transformation of the nation.

Dengue further underlined the need for an enhanced logistics system that adequately accommodate the new development, pointing out that the nation's export and import trade, which currently exceeds 16 million metric tons, will double in recent years.

Hence, fundamental reform in rail and road transport is believed to be crucial to continue these positive developments, he underscored.

According to the state minister, the port of Djibouti currently handles 95 percent of Ethiopia's import and export trade, but this is insufficient given the size of the country's economy.

He also indicated the inefficiencies being observed on the Ethio - Djibouti Railway as it is operating below its capacity due to several reasons including the limited amount of speed due to the fact that there are many animals moving on the railway tracks, so the trains are forced to travel at a much slower speed than it can travel.

In this respect, the reform is crucial to bring about real changes in railway infrastructure, services, finance and others, the state minister underlined.

The State Minister said that, with a formulated national logistics strategy, remarkable achievements have been registered over the past five years, noting that connecting rail and road transport lines with dry ports will be another focus of the ministry.

He mentioned the supports being provided by the World Bank in the sector.