Prime Minister Meles Zenawi affirmed government’s determination to control inflation and continue taking necessary measures according to the laws of the land.

Prime Minister of the FDRE, his Excellency Ato Meles Zenawi put forth the affirmation while he presented government’s performance report on economic matters to the 18th regular session of the House of Peoples’ Representatives, held on 18th of March 2008.

Meanwhile, the Government will continue to implement well-studied and carefully selected measures premier stressed adding that effectiveness of the measures will be evaluated to take corrective actions as necessary.

He also reaffirmed to the House that public enemy number one, inflation, would be crushed through decisive and effective measures to be taken by the government

According to the report, even though the main economic objective of the government is being achieved successfully, the endeavor to control inflation has not yielded the desired result.

The Premier, who said that the main emphasis must be aimed primarily at redoubling efforts towards long-term solutions, indicated the need to design and implement temporary responses to mitigate the immediate difficulties, without undermining the long-term solution.

Accordingly, the government is making efforts to increase people’s income by expanding the domestic production of basic goods and ensuring rapid economic growth, it was noted.

Besides, the National Bank and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development will take coordinated monetary and fiscal policy measures in order to further strengthen and ensure the effectiveness of actions taken to alleviate problems associated with the fast increasing circulation of money in the economy, premier underscored.

In a similar development, measures of modernizing agricultural marketing system would be taken and efforts of encouraging the establishment of consumers’ cooperatives would be intensified, according to the report.

Cheek by Jowl, the government will take strong legal measures to tackle problems being created by illegal business people, in close cooperation with the public and the law abiding majority of business people, the report indicated.

Meantime, Ato Meles called upon the people once again to establish consumers’ cooperatives voluntarily and urged government authorities at various levels to give legal recognition to organize cooperatives and provide them with full cooperation.

As part of stabilizing the market, the government expended a total of birr 4.2 billion on subsidies to minimize the burden on the public as clearly articulated in the report.

Also, the government has passed a decision to lift value added tax and Turn-Over Tax on grains which would be effective as 19th of March 2008, it was noted.

According to the report, the national economy will grow at no less than 10.8% this year while export trade has grown by 32% in the last eight months thereby show the success of government strategy.

After he had presented the report, the premier gave responses to the various questions remarks, concerns and views raised by member parties of the House.

It was learnt that representatively the EPRDF, the UEDF, EDUP, CUD, OFDM, the Parliament Group and the affiliated parties to EPRDF, which are political parties with seats in the House, had raised various issues related to drought, inflation, economic growth and the like.