IMF approves $2.9bn Ethiopia aid package

• Ethiopia will receive $2.9 billion in a three-year aid package to help economic reform.
• The program aims to support the authorities' implementation of their ambitious reform agenda.

WASHINGTON: Ethiopia will receive $2.9 billion in a three-year aid package to help economic reform, the International Monetary Fund has confirmed.

The country -- which has one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa -- will receive $308.4 million immediately, the IMF said in a statement on Friday.

"The program aims to support the authorities' implementation of their ambitious reform agenda," the Fund's first deputy managing director David Lipton said in a statement.

The funding would aim to ease foreign exchange shortages, as well as helping to reform state-owned enterprises, and safeguard financial stability, he added.

Lipton noted that Ethiopia's rapid growth over the past decade has reduced poverty and improved living standards, but that such a model -- driven by public investment -- had "reached its limits".

A financial agreement with the Fund will support the authorities' plan, helping to catalyze the funding of other partners.

The Ethiopian government announced last week that foreign donors have pledged to finance $9 billion in its ambitious economic reform program, crucial at a time when the country is facing violent ethnic unrest.