Ethiopia has given due attention to trade and industry by considering their importance to the overall economic and social transformation. Though agriculture remains central to the economy, trade and industry have also contributed their own shares to the successive economic growth registered over the past successive years. The sector’s importance in sustaining this successive growth is undeniable as the country is moving in the path of structural transformation.
Recently, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI) has evaluated its last five months performance and discussed its 100 days plan since the formation of Prime Minister Abiy’s new cabinet with stakeholders in Hawassa. The report focused on the Ministry’s efforts to build capacity, ensure fair trade, competition, and quality, support the country’s private manufacturing industries’ productivity, and build modern market system and linkage to generate foreign currency.
According to the Ministry, Ethiopia’s foreign trade performance over the past five months has also been short of the target. While it was planned to earn 1.58 billion USD from foreign trade, the country has managed to generate some 1.01 billion USD. The performance is also lower than that of last year by 9.23 percent.
The Ministry has also planned to export 362,483.32 tons of commercial agricultural products such as palm oil, cereals, fruit cereals, sorghum, wheat, rice, khat and generate 419,242.00 thousand USD. However, the country generated 326,795.15 USD by exporting 241,131.17 tons of the above mentioned agricultural products. Similarly, Ethiopia’s export sector has not achieved its targets in the export of manufacturing products such as clothes, leather and leather products, meat and milk, food and drinks, pharmaceutical, chemical and construction inputs, as well as metal and engineering materials.
Gizaw Tekl , Plan and Program Director at the Ministry said 317 importers that are selected from Tigria, Oromia, and SNNP states, as well as Dire Dawa city administratin, have been provided with awareness creation training about international trade. On the other hand, some 1,362 professionals who came from six local manufacturing industries have also received technical trainings. While various trainings have been provided to the Ministry’s staff members, the absence of research-based methods has negatively influenced their outcomes.
Lack of organized information to make sure whether the plan is implemented as per the schedule or not and the fact that the evaluation system that promotes the spirit of competitiveness among exports and importers do not meet international standards have been identified as major challenges faced during the past five months. While the ministry has planned to collect some 18,750,000 Birr from its services, it has only managed to collect 10,631,157 Birr.
This means, the Ministry has not met its plan, Gizew noted. On the other hand, the Ministry has almost completed two research studies that aim to identify ways to strengthen regional and bilateral trade relations and tap opportunities from the American free trade zone. Locally, in the last five months, 45.396 million liters of milk were planned to be supplied to the Ethiopian market.
Yet it was only managed to distribute 38.346 million liters of milk, which is 84.47 percent of the plan, as the efforts to modernize the dairy sector and create market-oriented farmers have not been successful. Again, the country has also achieved only 78.8 percent of its five months plan in terms of increasing the chicken meat supply. Opening the discussion, Fetlework Gebregziabher, Minister of Trade and Industry (MOTI) said the 100 days plan was prepared by considering the last five months performance and existing challenges.
According to her, in the 100 days plan, the importation of basic consumption goods has received due attention to ensure that citizens are benefited fairly. And to solve the existing challenges and provide quality services for the community, the Ministry has also been trying to implement various technologies to put in place a working system. She also added that by creating linkage with the global market, various efforts have been undertaken to improve the country’s foreign currency earnings.
Herald January 3/2019
BY ESSEYE MENGSTE
