Between 2011 and 2016, Locus Economica assisted the government of Ethiopia with the development of its new Industrial Park program. Under six assignments (two with the World Bank and four with the Ethiopian Ministry of Industry), our work has included the following broad activities:

Advising on best practices for the creation of a new zones program.
Designing an SEZ Policy and Legal Framework
Delivering a capacity-building program to numerous government ministries
Working closely with the Ethiopian Ministry of Industry to craft a new Industrial Parks Proclamation and to revise the Proclamation throughout the political process.
Designing organizational structures and functions for new administrative agencies for the Industrial Parks.
Providing an analysis of the new Investment Incentives Law, Investment Board Law and Customs Law.
Drafting complete sets of implementing regulations and subsidiary decrees and revising them in response to feedback from government and private-sector stakeholders.
Evaluated constraints to the investment climate in Ethiopia and how those constraints can be addressed through its Industrial Parks.
Trained Ministry of Industry staff on Industrial Park legal matters.

Our assistance has been informed by our extensive experience and knowledge of international best practices. We carefully adapted this experience and knowledge to the Ethiopian context in accordance with the desires of the Ethiopian government. Following Locus Economica work, the regulations we worked on were published in the Negarit Gazette in September 2017 and issued as Council of Ministers Regulation on Industrial Parks No 417/2017 and The Ethiopian Investment Board Industrial Parks Directive No.06/2017 we prepared drafts of were likewise tabled for approval by the EIB on 12th October 2017, completing the norm-setting cycle.