Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome and Prime Minister Hailemariam met with GCL Chairman Zhu Gongshan in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia on January 16-17. The two sides held friendly talks on jointly promoting GCL’s “Ethiopia – Djibouti oil and gas project”. On the afternoon of January 16, Zhu paid an official call to Tan Jian, Chinese Ambassador to Ethiopia.

Zhu thanked the Ethiopian government for the high attention it gave to the project development. He briefed the president and prime minister respectively on the progress in planning, development and construction of the project, saying that GCL is capable of and confident in, under the backdrop of great global energy reform, promoting the full-industrial-chain development of the project persistently and steadily, pledging that the group will continue to expand its investment in Ethiopia, actively promote the implementation of modern chemical projects such as the urea project and new energy projects related to wind, solar, hydropower and geo-thermal energy, and join hands to promote its initiatives of PV-based poverty relief in Africa and the “Lighten Ethiopia”.

Mulatu Teshome welcomed the GCL delegation, praised the professional performance of GCL’s oil and gas project team in East Asia over the past years, and agreed that the team has given a strong and helpful impetus to the project and made remarkable results. Hailemariam spoke highly of the positive contributions made by GCL to the development of Ethiopia, saying that the Ethiopia government will deepen its cooperation with GCL for mutual benefits by focusing on the oil & gas project, and give stronger supports for GCL to make investments in the country.

The oil & gas project is the largest energy cooperation project between China and Ethiopia, and a model project for deepening the “Belt and Road” initiative and capacity cooperation between the two sides. The Ethiopian government has decided to integrate the project into its national development strategy, give stronger policy-based supports for implementation of mid- and long-term plans of the project, and finally bring benefits to the peoples of the two countries. The two sides exchanged views on the principles of and measures for project development as well as GCL’s industrial deployment in Ethiopia.

Witnessed by Hailemariam and Zhu, the two sides held a ceremony for signing the Agreement on Development of the Oil & Gas Pipelines in Ethiopia, laying a solid foundation for full-scale startup of the oil & gas pipeline project.

Present at the ceremony were Motuma Mekassa, Ethiopian Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister, Koang Tutlam, Ethiopian Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas Vice Minister, Ketsela Tadesse, Head of Ethiopian Petroleum Licensing & Administration of Ministry of Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas, Zhao Bao, Chinese Military Attaché in Ethiopia, as well as GCL executives Sha Hongqiu, Barton Yu, Wang Feng, and others.