• Says government needs to encourage private sector to engage in input production
ADDIS ABABA– Berhanena Selam Printing Enterprise (BSPE) said foreign exchange shortage is pulling it back from its progress towards digitization.
Daniel Haile, Public Relation and Communication Director at BSPE told The Ethiopian Herald even though the Enterprise has sufficient local currency deposit in bank and made purchasing requests, foreign currency shortage, evidenced at national level, is affecting the timely purchase of new machineries and other inputs.
“Ninety five percent of the inputs that we use for printing are imported from overseas. Only three to four percent input is covered from local manufacturing and recycling technology has also been less effective within the few paper manufacturers,” noted Daniel.
Therefore the government need to encourage the private sector to invest on printing inputs manufacturing, he stressed. “Even if we are in a digitized era, there is no work to be completed without paper. We are still importing paper. In this case, the country is rich with resources and the government ought to emphasize on involving private companies in not only paper production but also the manufacturing of other printing inputs,” he noted.
Meanwhile, Daniel indicated that although the purchasing delay and dependency on imported inputs have their own factors in maintaining printing quality, the Enterprise is doing its best to improve its service with available instruments and building the capacity of its employees.
The Enterprise that envisions to be one of the top printing Enterprises in Africa by 2027 is still operating with CTP technology as it single handedly holds the printing task of most of the national documents including secret documents like checks.
Daniel said customers of BSPE are increasing from time to time and it is ready to launch new services such as check personalization. It has also started publishing the works of authors who could not afford the exorbitant prices. It does so through analyzing their writing works by different categories.
Meanwhile, as soon as the country recovers from its foreign currency problems and purchasing procedures of printing materials are complete, the Enterprise would build its capacity and join the digitized printing service, according to Daniel.
The Ethiopian Herald June 23, 2019
BY HENOK TIBEBU
