Ethiopia to double road network

The Ethiopian government has announced plans to double the length of the country’s road network to 200,000km by 2020. This would be double the length it was in 2015.

The government’s Roads Authority revealed the target while reporting on the second five-year Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP-II), which runs from 2015 to 2020.

In 2015, at the end of GTP-I, the road network had reached 100,000km. It is now reported to stand at 121,171km, according to the roads ministry.

In an interview Samson Wondimu, a director at the ministry, said that the annual budget for roads had grown to reach US$1.7 billion.

Ethiopia is Africa’s second most populous country. It is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, although rising government debt is an issue.