XXII. Overall, the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) has continued with reforms that started with the introduction of the Agricultural Development-Led Industrialisation (ADLI) strategy in 1992. The strategy provides the basis for its subsequent adoption of other development frameworks that are currently being implemented, including the Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) covering the period 2005/06-2009/10. In the context of these economic reform and poverty reduction programmes, the government’s primary macroeconomic objective has been to promote rapid, broad-based and sustainable private sectorled growth that is adequate to reduce poverty. The target economic growth rate is 7.0 percent per annum. XXIII. On standards and codes, Ethiopia has signed and ratified several international standards and codes. However, the CRM is concerned that no detailed or further information was availed to the team regarding (a) the status of implementation of ratified treaties to validate performance of these standards and codes; (b) mechanisms for monitoring the implementation of the ratified standards and codes; (c) the central depository of ratified and domesticated standards and codes; (d) and, (e) the level of public awareness of ratified standards and codes. Apart from the implementation of financial standards and codes, there seemed to be little that the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) was doing to close this gap apart from enrolling the international financial institutions for technical assistance. XXIV. Without a doubt, the performance of macroeconomic variables in the recent past has been remarkable despite the prevalence of internal and external shocks to the economy. Significant achievements have been made in several areas of economic growth, including inflation control, employment creation, domestic resource mobilisation and decline in fiscal deficits, export promotion (particularly of non-tradition exports), food security, private sector development and investment. XXV. However, the robust growth performance and considerable development gains from 2003 to 2007 period came under threat in 2008 with the emergence of the twin macroeconomic challenges of high inflation and a difficult balance of payments situation. The problem was exacerbated by the high fuel and food prices in the global market and adverse weather conditions. These threats have moderated as the Government of Ethiopia has taken a number of steps in recent months to address the macroeconomic problems (e.g., tightening fiscal policy and reducing government’s domestic borrowing, mitigating the impact of high food prices on the poor, reducing the domestic borrowing of public enterprises, tightening money supply, and gradually depreciating the local currency). XXVI. A major concern for Ethiopia is the current low levels of domestic resource mobilisation and the reliance in large part on external resource inflows, in particular, under the Protection of Basic Services (PBS) programme to finance - 28 -