Quality is a matter of fulfilling the direct or indirect formality and interest of a given product and service. Also, it is the result of a comparison between what was required and what was provided. Subsequently, unless any product or service does not qualify a given formality or quality, it is difficult to compete with the international market.
Cognizant of the above facts, coupled with its advantage in economic development, Ethiopia is highly working on strengthening quality assurance among imported and exported products. As to the documents from Ethiopian Conformity and Assurance Enterprise (ECAE) – a publicly owned enterprise that provides testing, inspection, and certification services in Ethiopia – manufacturers and service providers, regulatory bodies and consumers are responsible for quality assurance.
The Enterprise is particularly working on controlling import items like chemical products, electronics and construction materials in parallel with export items like agriculture, manufacturing and mining products.
On the other hand, the Ethiopian Standards Agency is also working on intensifying quality assurance surveillance works in a bid to boost the country’s export trade and realize the 2025 plan to join middle-income countries.
And considering the economic advantage to the country, the Agency is particularly working on quality assurance on export items like agriculture, manufacturing, and mining. Apart from this, market and factory surveillance are underway to check the overall export progress and process of the country.
The Agency conducted extensive quality control on both import and export items. Accordingly, it has made quality control for 1.2 million metric tons of imported and 400,000 metric tons of exported items during the nine months of last fiscal year, whereas Ministry of Trade and Industry inspected among 75,650.00 and 48,970.69 Metric tons of export items of palm products and cereals respectively during the first quarter of the current fiscal year.
Hamza Ahmed, a manufactured goods exporter, told The Ethiopian Herald that though the export performance of the country showed increments from time to time, the volume does not meet the target set by the government. As to him, the government should specifically focus on quality control in order to compete in the international market.
Some of the products get returned from the port after going through our quality control, he added. Accordingly, extensive and fruitful quality control also helps to alleviate such failures. He also suggested that producers and exporters focus on quality so as to increase their income and boost the country’s export performance.
He also emphasized that the government should work on creating awareness within all the stakeholders involved in import-export activity. Though Ethiopia has shown encouraging growth in enhancing export trade and maximizing its foreign currency earnings, each business people and the government should work hand in hand.
Accordingly, the Agency is gunning to increase pre and post quality controlling the mechanism and awareness creation campaigns, whereas the Ministry of Trade and Industry has offered Kaizen training coupled with technical support and follows up for more than 14 fabrics and 47 industries.
The Ethiopian Herald December25, 2019
BY HIZKEL HAILU
