Ethiopia’s manufacturing sector export revenue disappoints

ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) — Ethiopia managed to earn 436.73 million U.S. dollars from the manufacturing sector exports in the Ethiopian Fiscal Year (EFY) 2016/17 that ended on July 8.
The export revenue met only 47.8 percent target of the 913.66 million U.S. dollars the East African nation had planned to earn during the EFY.
Assefa Tesfaye Corporate Communications Director at Ethiopia Ministry of Industry (MoI) told Xinhua on Tuesday that lack of management and technological capacity of some industries, insufficient supply of manufacturing inputs, quality problems with manufacturing inputs and delay in commissioning of several industries contributed to the disappointing result.
MoI in particular mentioned a commissioning lag in some manufacturing plants operating in Ethiopia’s highly advertized Hawassa Industrial Park for the disappointing export revenue.
Built by China Civil Engineering Corporation (CCECC), the Hawassa Industrial Park 275 kms south of capital Addis Ababa was inaugurated back in July 2016.
Eighteen companies have already started operations inside the industrial park and six of them are presently exporting their products to the global market.
Once operational at its full potential, the park is expected to generate 1 billion dollars for the Ethiopia annually mainly from textile and garment sector.
It is the textile and garment sector that showed its most disappointing result earning the East African country 89.3 million dollars in export revenue out of a planned 271 million dollars. Enditem