ADDIS ABABA – Growing number of African countries and international businesses are vying to replicate the Hawassa Industrial Park’s (IP’s) eco-friendly facilities.
According to Fitsum Ketema, Park General Manager, the park is regarded as “the first sustainable textile and apparel industrial park in Africa with state-of-the-art infrastructure and facility hosting 21 international companies operating in 52 factory sheds. “The park has become a model for other industrial parks under construction in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa, mainly due to its Zero-Liquid Discharge (ZLD) technology it has installed,” Fitsum said.
According to him, the ZLD technology currently treats 11 million liters of waste-water on a daily basis and recovers the treated water for a recycle use. He also said that the ZLD is also one major initiative as part of the park’s three major aspirations that are job creation, foreign currency, as well as technology transfer.
Due to this, investors and policymakers often describe the park as a world-class infrastructure, Fitsum noted. Fitsum also recalled the recent visit of different African leaders to the industry park including Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki.
Different African leaders have witnessed the park’s success firsthand, and expressed their strong desire to replicate it in the respective countries, he stated. All facilities and factory sheds installed inside the industry park were built cognizant to the international compliance standard Fitsum said, adding that other industrial parks across Ethiopia were designed and constructed to replicate the park’s standard.
“While we work to realize our major targets, we are also exerting our efforts to make sure that the industry park applies all the latest technologies that are available to treat and recycle the factory waste,” he said. “The Ethiopian government and the contractor company have exerted their utmost efforts and all the right technologies during the design, construction and operation phases of the park in a bid to make it environment-friendly,” he added.
As part of ongoing efforts to advance the park’s eco-friendly aspect, the management has also dedicated about 10 percent of the total land area to the development of a green area that will host close to 50,000 seedlings inside the premises of the park, according to Fitsum.
The park is also at the heart of Ethiopia’s ambition towards the development of sustainable, world-class, specialized, export-driven and competitive industrial parks in different parts of the country, as part of Ethiopia’s aspiration to build a middle-income green economy, according to the Director General.
Built by China Civil Engineering Corporation (CCECC), the Hawassa Industrial Park was completed in a record time of nine months, and was inaugurated back in July 2016, Fitsum expressed.
After the Hawassa industrial park, the government has further embarked on the development of similar parks in Kombolcha, Adama, Jimma, Mekele, Kilinto, Bole Lemmi II, Dire Dawa, and Bahir Dar, among others, it was learnt.
The Ethiopian Herald, August 27/2019
BY YOHANES JEMANEH
