Interview: Ethiopian PM lauds China´s reform policy

Meles stressed that the process of reform and development in China has provided an alternative paradigm for Africa's development.

According to the Ethiopian prime minister, in the 1990s, in Africa there was a strong sense of dogmatism with a paradigm, namely, the so called "Washington Consensus."

The term Washington Consensus was initially coined in 1989 by John Williamson to describe a set of 10 specific economic policy prescriptions that he considered to constitute a "standard" reform package, promoted for crisis-wrecked developing countries by Washington D.C-based institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and the U.S. Treasury Department.

The term has come to be used in a different and broader sense, as a synonym for market fundamentalism. It has become associated with neoliberal policies in general and drawn into the broader debate over the expanding role of the free market and constraints upon the state.

Meles said a number of African countries in the 1990s endeavored to implement the reform packages as the sole alternative for their development.

"That was proved to be incorrect," he said.

"It has now been proved that the development paradigm in China has its own specific advantages. Africa needs to learn this development paradigm."

Meles said the economic transformation of China has disproved the pessimistic attitude, that was "If you are poor once, you are likely to be poor forever."

The rise of China has a "tremendous moral impact on Africa, and it is a lesson that many African countries can and should learn from China," he said.

Editor:Zheng Limin