Low level of quality infrastructure development is one of the main challenges in boosting export. Ethiopia’s exporters face huge challenges to join the global market due to shortage of quality infrastructure. Since 2017, the government has been implementing the National Quality Infrastructure(NQI) Development Project.
The government and the World Bank Group signed a 50 million USD agreement to support the government initiatives in the area of quality infrastructure. The agreement particularly aims at strengthening institutional capacity of NQI development, enhancing private sector engagement as well as project management, monitoring and evaluation.
Following the recent restructuring of Government ministries, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MoTI) has been mandated with the task of oversighting the National Quality Infrastructure Development. Recently, MoTI has organized workshop to improve and fully implement NQI development to support potential exporters and raise competitiveness of Ethiopian firms at global market in targeted sectors.
Wondwosen Fisseha, Project Coordinator of NQID Project said that development of robust NQI system enables the country to meet the demands of growing industries and increase competitiveness of products in global market by removing quality related constraints, avoiding duplicated testing and inspection and ensuring product conformity with technical requirements to conform required standards and certification.
Government selected three sectors such as textile and garments, leather and leather products and agroprocessing sectors to improve the delivery of quality assurance services to support potential exporters and service providers and meet demand of industries, consumers and regulatory authorities. Development of industrial parks is a pilot program to carry out feasibility studies to identify market demand and opportunities for quality assurance services.
During the workshop, Fetlework Gebregziabher Minister of Trade and Industry said that the government has given strategic emphasis to the growth of light manufacturing industries and create awareness among Ethiopian firms specifically exporters to meet international product standards and certification. However, lack of adequate national quality infrastructure severely affected the ability of Ethiopian firms to produce goods and services that meet the quality specification of global market, she added. Obviously, increasing exports is an important factor development and growth. And exporting companies play vital role for the economic development of the country by generating foreign currency. On the other hand, nationally, the level of awareness and the overall structure of quality infrastructure system are at low stage.
The level of quality infrastructure system doesn’t reflect the current development status of the country. That is why the government is working by giving due emphasis to strengthening quality infrastructure to go along with the country’s GDP. As to Wondwosen, lack of adequate capacity to provide quality assurance services by public institutions, inability of industries to meet target market standards, and unaffordable costs of compliance with international standards are the main development challenges in the NQI.
While basic elements of the NQI system have been put in place in Ethiopia since reform in the sector have been undertaken, the service delivery capacity of the NQI institutions is inadequate to support the competitiveness of industries.
The NQI institutions lack capacity in human resources, the facility to ensure accurate measurement, well-equipped laboratories to meet industries’ demands, as well as coordination and collaboration with regulatory bodies to implement quality assurance services. Even though, the basic element of national quality infrastructure system has been put in place in the country, regulatory functions within various ministries to oversee compliances across the country, Minister noted. The services delivery capacity of the NQI institutions is insufficient to support the competitiveness of manufacturing industry to break into international market.
They also have limited internationally recognized services. This is identified as one of the key bottlenecks for competitiveness of exporters. Moreover, low product quality is a hindrance to the performance of export. Improving the NQI system can promote quality upgrading, firm growth, and capacity of export trade for government agencies, procurement of testing equipment, and engagement with the private sector.
Herald December 27/2018
BY TSEGAYE TILAHUN
