ADDIS ABABA, May 26 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopian government disclosed on Saturday that the country's road coverage has increased from less than 19,000km to 113,000km during the last 27 years.
The Ethiopian Roads Authority said the East African country's road coverage in 1991 was estimated to be less than 19,000km, of which the share of rural areas was less than 6,000km while urban areas with around 12,000km.
With 113,000km total road coverage, road access has now reached to 1.23km per 1,000 Ethiopians, figures from Ethiopian Roads Authority indicated.
The authority further noted Ethiopia's current investments in the infrastructure construction sector, which includes railway construction across the country as well as connecting the capital Addis Ababa with the long-serving Djibouti port.
The 752km transnational Ethiopia-Djibouti Standard Gauge Rail, East Africa's first electrified railway, and the Addis Ababa Light Rail, a 475-million-U.S. dollar railway project, are the pioneer railway infrastructures in Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian government also considered the two Chinese-built transport projects as flagship infrastructure projects as Ethiopia works to remain as Africa's fastest-growing economy.
Meanwhile, Ethiopia's electricity generation capacity has also registered an 11-fold increase during the last 27 years, according to the Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP).
According to EEP CEO, Azeb Asnake, Ethiopia has managed to increase its electricity generation from 380 Mega Watts (MW) in 1991 to around 4,300 MW currently.
She also said EEP has managed to increase its customer numbers from 600,000 in 1991 to around 2.8 million people in 2018, while an additional 8,000 rural towns being beneficiaries of electricity during the same period.
"Ethiopia is constructing several energy projects, including the 6,450 MW Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which in total can generate about 9,000 MW of additional energy," said Asnake.
