BISHOFTU- Ethiopia is scaling up efforts of combating illicit coffee trade via establishing a command post in charge of regulating and controlling illegal foreign trade.
Agriculture Minister Omer Hussein said recently that the command post would diminish the coffee exports’ potential hazard that is right now causing limitation in distinguishing the offenders from the legal exporters. The command post mainly drawn from relevant stakeholders of law enforcing bodies, transport authorities, maritime and logistic, customs and revenue, under the supervisory of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Moreover, he said the country is expected to produce a large number of professionals who specialized in coffee having envisaged aspiring plan to devise curriculum to produce coffee experts in collaboration with higher institute using its road map that lasts for 15 years.
For instance, Dilla University has recently started astonishing works with the aim of producing coffee professionals involving farmers, exporters, and relevant executives, thus such best experience will soon be scaled up in other universities across the country, Omer added.
Ministry of Trade and Industry Export Trade Expansion Directorate Director Asefa mulugeta for his part said that combating illicit coffee trade shall not left to certain groups alone as it is the responsibility of all citizens. “Illicit trade is a major and growing problem for Ethiopia. Be it smuggling, counterfeit or tax evasion, governments are losing billions of dollars in tax revenues, legitimate businesses are being undermined and consumers are being exposed to poorly made and unregulated products.”
For Transport Authority Directorate Director Abdisa Yadeta, apart from combating illicit trade, modernizing the transport and logistics of the country has paramount importance to swift the export trade; therefore, he said his office would work towards alleviating logistic problems setting a comprehensive plan with the involvement of actors of transportation.
It is to be recalled that the Ethiopian Tea Coffee Authority recently announced that Ethiopia has scored a new record becoming second best performing in coffee export in terms of volume.
Though there has been a decline in the price of coffee over the last 13 years, efforts have been under taken to compensate the loss of the desired foreign currency from coffee through maximizing the export volume. Hence, over the year the country has delivered 239,144.60 tones coffee tea and spice to the over-sea market and earned 774.10 million USD. The United States of America appeared to be the leading income generating country.
The Ethiopian Herald, August 6/2019
BY LAKACHEW ATINAFU
