Addis Ababa, Feb 06(ENA)--Over 3.3 billion Birr was obtained from the sale of various government-owned developmental enterprises to private investors since the Ethiopian Privatization Agency has begun operation in 1995, the agency said here on Tuesday.

The stated sum was secured from the sale of 201 state-enterprises, which was carried out between 1995 and 2001, the agency said.

It said there are still 156 other state business enterprises that are planned to be privatized in the years ahead of which 48 are scheduled to be sold to private investors during this Ethiopian fiscal year.

The business firms, which had already been privatized accounted for 70 per cent of the 357 government-owned firms in which the government intends to privatize, the agency said.

The enterprises that will be privatized over the stated period include textile, leather and food industries and coffee plantations.

Some 129 of the 201 privatized businesses are reported to be retail enterprises while the rest are small-scale hotels and cattle breeding centers.

Privatizing government-owned businesses is part of the economic program aimed at strengthening the private sector of the economy decentralizing the command-oriented economic system that existed for 17 years under the communist regime of Mengistu Haile-Mariam.

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