ADDIS ABABA, March 21 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopian government on Wednesday declined recent reports that the recently imposed six-month state of emergency would have negative impacts on the country's tourism sector.
According to the Ethiopian Ministry of Culture and Tourism, interruptions were not observed since the current state of emergency rule was announced on February 16, and are not expected afterwards as a result of the martial law.
The current 6-month state of emergency period is the second the East African country imposed since the second half of 2016. Ethiopia had witnessed a 10-month long state of emergency period since October 2016.
The Ethiopian government has previously revealed that the 10-month long emergency rule had imposed challenges in its efforts to attract foreign tourists, in which various analysts are currently raising concern that the current emergency rule would also impose similar challenges on the sector.
"Tangible information that we have gathered from tour operators all over the country indicates that no incident of interruptions have been witnessed in the country so far," Gezahegn Abate, the Ministry's Director of Public and International Relations, told state news agency ENA on Wednesday.
Abate, who noted the importance of peace and stability to the tourism sector in general, also indicated that the state of emergency rule would help the East African country to bring about the intended target in bringing peace and stability to Ethiopia.
According to the Ministry, over 3.32 billion U.S. dollars in revenue was generated from over 886,800 tourists that visited the country during the 2016-2017 Ethiopian fiscal year.