ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopia has lost billions of dollars for holding back to provide processed agricultural products based on partners’ requirements due to poorly-advanced animal handling and investment procedures.
According to Ethiopian Meat and Dairy Industry Development Institute (EMDIDI), trade barriers such as absence of disease free zone, humanly animal handling and traceability restricted the country from earning billion USD.
In 2017, the country signed MoU with china to export in a million tonnes of meat products per year. However Ethiopia is not capable of meeting the aforementioned requirement so that it lost the income, EMDIDI Marketing Research Director Mekonnen Gashu told The Ethiopian Herald.
“China was planned to join Ethiopia’s meat market to its wide demand despite Ethiopia’s incompetence. However China’s market is still opened for us if we possibly fix the problem.”
In the future, Ethiopia needs to set disease free zone and improve its traceability in the industry. Today the country has a strong commitment to achieve this but its needs serious study and worthy budget, he said.
The nation needs to plan a big project that will conduct feasibility study, project design, resource allocation and mobilization to realize the disease free area equipped with the necessary infrastructure, he noted.
As to him, country’s agro-processing industries are exercising under 50 percent production capacity mainly due to poor volume, quality and increased cost of inputs which is directly or indirectly related to the absence of disease free zone.
On the other hand, the delay to get investment license, poor infrastructures, shortage of loan and absence modern services restrained the nation to have productive industries in area, he stated.
The Allana Group, (Indian meat processing company located in Adami Tulu, Oromia State) did not went operational based on the plan and even it does not produce at its full capacity due to various factors and mainly lack of input both in quality and quantity and instability.
It has the capacity to produce more than the total product of 200,000 tons of meat by the whole industries in the area per annum. Over the past six months, the industry has helped the country to earn 5.3 million USD from the planned 20.3 mln USD.
Over the past six months, the country has earned some 48.1 million USD which covers only 52 percent of the planned 92.5 million USD. Among the products, meat shares about 97 percent and the rest are dairy, honey, wax and fish products respectively, he said.
United Arab Emirates and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have imported 86.6 percent of the exported meat. The institute is conducting marketing research and supporting industries on input delivery, he stated.
Accordingly, the institute has been working to expand new market destinations and strengthen the already existing market relations with various countries, he disclosed.
It organizes various awareness raising programs including workshops and trade fairs working with producers to draw lesson from international partners on the ways of improving quality of products, according to him.
However,stakeholders must collaborate for realizing well developed industries that has guarantee of inputs both in quality and quantity to its productivity, he underlined.
The government must also work to cutout tiresome bureaucracies and realize
The Ethiopian Herald February 19/2019
BY YOHANES JEMANEH
