4.1 Urban Economy and Role of the Town

The town mainly serves as woreda and zone administration, and commercial center. There are 346 manufacturing industries, 126 wholesale trades, 1365 retail trades, 257 service trades ,4 fuel stations and 15 garages in the town. There are four banks and two micro finance organizations giving services in the town.

The average annual revenue of the municipality was 600,000 Birr and the major sources of revenue were urban land lease, service charges and various taxes. The major investment opportunities in the town are hotel and tourism development, agro processing and construction industry 

According to CSA 2007, economic activity rate in the town was 40.6 for both sexes; 46.8 and 34.5 for males and females respectively. The rate of unemployment in the same period was 14.5 for both sexes. The male and female unemployments were 12.3 and 17.3% respectively in the same period.

Debre Tabor town has economic linkages with the surrounding areas and Addis Ababa. The town gets grain products, livestock supply, natural resources (fuel wood and charcoal) and labor from surrounding areas manufacturing and commercial products from Bahirdar.

4.2 Social and Municipal Services

Social Services

Education

There are five privately owned kindergartens; 12 government and four private primary schools; twogovernment senior secondary (9-10 grades) schools; one preparatory school, one TVET;  one university; two government and one private colleges and one university.

Health

Regarding health services in Debre Tabor town there are one government hospital, and three government health centers, two private clinics, four government health posts, three government, one private pharmacy and  ambulances that give service to emergency cases.                  

Municipal Services

Debre Taabor town has one public meeting hall, abattoir giving slaughtering service for Christians; a general and cattle market meeting once a week on Saturdays and one daily market. Solid waste is collected by a dump truck, tractor and two horse drown carts and disposed in authorized open dump site. Ten persons organized in Micro and Small Scale Enterprises are engaged in collection of solid waste. There are four public toilets in the town, and liquid waste is collected by vacuum trucks rented from other towns.

There is a green area covering 40% of the town, forest is found in 7 places and street trees are also planted along 5Km of streets. There are one public library and town hall, a stadium and one playground, and hotels of different standards in the town. Regarding religious services, in the town there are eight churches for Orthodox Christians, two churches for protestant and one mosque