Ethiopia is suspending the tender process for the granting of a second telecommunications license and will relaunch it in the “near future,” the government communications service said on Thursday (December 23rd). The state said in September it had solicited requests for proposals for the license, which was due to be issued in January 2022.
As a reminder, the Horn of Africa country only sold one of two full-service licenses offered in May. It is the consortium led by the first Kenyan operator Safaricom which had won the contract.
The licenses are seen as a big prize in the country’s push to liberalize the economy, which had been one of the last major telecommunications markets to be closed in the world.
The Ethiopian authorities had initiated a reform in the sector which represents one of the main chapters of the Homegrown Economic Reform Agenda, the ambitious reform program of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, intended to transform the country from an agrarian society to an economy industrial.
According to some economists, this liberalization will be a boon for foreign investors because Ethiopia is the “last big country in the world to open its telecommunications sector to competition”.
