4.1 Urban Economy and Status of the Town

The town serves as regional administration, trade, education and investment center. There are 512 manufacturing industries, 280 wholesale trades, 7887 retail trades, five fuel stations, nine banks and four branch micro financial institution in the town. The average annual revenue of the municipality within the 2009-2011 period was 68,265,377.00 Birr and the major sources of revenue were taxes, rent and service charges. The major investment opportunities in the town are: manufacturing industry, agro processing industry of honey, social services, hotel and tourism development.  Mekele has economic linkages with the surrounding areas, towns in the region and Addis Ababa. The town gets grain products, livestock supply, natural resources (fuel wood, charcoal) and surplus labor from surrounding areas; agricultural inputs as well as manufacturing and commercial products and some construction materials from Addis Ababa while  the city serves as market center for surrounding areas.

4.2 Social and Municipal Services

Social Services

Education

There are 54  private kindergartens; 22 government and six  private primary schools; 28 private and 30 government secondary schools;  eight government and nine private senior secondary schools including preparatory; three government and eight private preparatory schools; one government and 18 private TVETs; four government and 13 private colleges and one government university in the town.

Health

Regarding health services in the town there are two government and one private hospitals, one zonal hospital, one specialized hospital, nine government health centers, 38 private clinics and 25 private pharmacies.

Municipal Services

Mekele town has public meeting halls, abattoir giving slaughtering service for Christians and Muslims; fire brigade, ambulance, public libraries and municipal cemetery. It has a general market meeting all the week, cattle market meeting twice a week on Mondays and Fridays and other seven markets.

Solid waste is collected by dump trucks and disposed in open dump waste disposal site. Three associations with 250 members are organized in Micro and Small-scale Enterprises are engaged in solid waste collection services.  There are 30 public toilets while liquid waste is collected by vacuum truck of the city and disposed in the prepared site. There are parks and street trees planted along 8.12 km of streets; five four star hotels, and other hotels of different standards, restaurants, cafes, one stadium, 10 playgrounds, two museums in the town.  Regarding religious services there are 33 churches for Orthodox Christians, four churches for Protestants, one church for Catholics and eight mosques.