General Electric, the world’s leading digital industrial company consolidated its footprint in Africa with the official opening of GE Ethiopia new offices in Addis Ababa.
The President of FDRE (Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia), H.E Dr Mulatu Teshome was the guest of honour and was joined by Peter Vrooman, Chargé d’Affaires A.I of the United States of America to Ethiopia, Jay Ireland, President & CEO of GE Africa; Daniel Hailu, CEO of GE in Ethiopia, as well as distinguished guests from the local public and private sector.
The newly inaugurated facility has the capacity to host up to 60 staff members and represents a tangible commitment from GE towards a long-term partnership with its Ethiopian customers.
“GE’s presence in Ethiopia is a demonstration of the government’s efforts to create a conducive business environment for foreign investors and further underpins the government’s commitment to support economic value in line with our aim to achieve lower middle-income status by 2025,” stated H.E Dr Mulatu during the event.
GE continues to be a key partner for Africa with significant presence in the sub-Saharan Africa region with over 2,600 employees, revenues of about $3.9 billion dollars (2016) and operations in 33 countries. GE’s partnership with African Governments and local companies forms an essential part of GE’s growth formula on the continent and is driven by our very local teams.
In Ethiopia, GE businesses are playing a central role in the implementation of the second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP), providing technology solutions, enabled with material knowledge transfer and capacity development localisation schemes in partnership with state-owned enterprises and local private sector companies.
Daniel Hailu, Chief Executive Officer of GE in Ethiopia said, “GE has been operating in Ethiopia for about 9 years and has grown from a staff of one to over 40 local professionals today. We are delivering impactful outcomes for our customers and we are eager to expand our participation in the GTP projects across the power, transportation and healthcare sectors.”
Earlier in the week, GE held a Digital Industrial seminar in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to introduce GE’s digital capabilities. The event gathered key players in public and private space to discuss the relevance of the industrial transformation in unlocking productivity and capacity in the Ethiopia industries. GE is pioneering technologies to enable operations in a wide variety of sectors ranging from healthcare, power and transportation to capitalise on the maturation of industrial Internet by enabling faster, smarter and more efficiently operations. This aligns with Ethiopia’s GTP pillar of creating conditions for the industry to play key role in accelerating the expansion of the economy.
