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Full steam ahead as Swiss financier jumps on board

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The Harro market railway project secured a loan facility in the past week for USD 1.4 billion from Credit Suisse, a Switzerland-based financial group.

The line stretches from Awash to Weldia, both in the Amhara Regional State, and is part of the national railway project that extends from Mekele, the capital of the Tigray Regional State, to Djibouti, via Semera, in the Afar Regional State.

GE plans to establish an assembly plant in Ethiopia

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The US-based manufacturing giant, General Electric (GE), is planning to establish a medical equipment assembly plant in Ethiopia.

http://www.thereporterethiopia.com/index.php/news-headlines/item/1537-uk-retail-giant-wary-of-poor-working-conditions

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Investment flow to Africa hampered by negative perception, says Dangote in Davos

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Negative perceptions, often arising from unfounded reports of social and political situations in African countries are blocking foreign direct investments into the region, Aliko Dangote, president of the Dangote Group has said.

The implications, he indicated, were a cramping of these economies and the job opportunities envisaged.

Speaking at the ongoing World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland yesterday, Dangote said governments of African countries needed to make deliberate efforts to correct these distortions, in order to widen the channels of investment flow.

Speaking during a live telecast of a business platform “Africa’s Next Billion”, alongside other leaders, including Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan and Ghana’s John Mahama, Dangote said the wrong perception of the security and political situation in Africa had made investors, especially from the West, to lose sight of the potentials in the continent, and African countries had also done little or nothing to remedy the ugly situation.

Explaining that the situation in Africa was not as bad as was being painted, the businessman said corporate investors did not check what Africa was truly about, but based their judgments on what they read in newspapers, which was often incorrect.

“For instance, foreign investors wait for elections to be concluded. After then, they try to check the stability of the government of the day, for at least two years, but by then, its more difficult to take any decision because the tenure of the government is coming to an end. By so doing, foreign investors are scared of incoming or incumbent governments and the cycle keeps going on,” Dangote said.

“But then, I don’t think there is anything to be afraid of because no government is against business, every government is pro-business. Most business risks are perceived, not actual risks,” he stated.

He lamented that Africa was not good at telling its own stories, which meant that people often relied on stories they heard from others, to make their decisions, and most times those stories were not true. “People always underestimate Africa,” he said.

He added: “As at today, an American has more access to Africa than myself, taking visa issues into consideration. I would require 38 visas to visit 38 African countries outside of ECOWAS.

“The government needs to make a policy where we don’t supply/export raw materials alone; we want to be involved. We want those factories to be set up and produce here, run it for us for about 4-5 years, then we can take over production ourselves. Majority of our raw materials have been exported, processed abroad and brought back with at least 10 percent higher than the original cost.”

He said that entrepreneurship entails being able to take calculated risks, strong business stamina and a large appetite for work and success, adding that Africa has what it takes for people to do business and succeed.

“In Nigeria, we have one of the most attractive investment policies through framework that the government has put in place to help businesses succeed. If I dreamt five years ago that I would invest in agriculture, I would write it off as bad dream or nightmare, but today, we’re investing $2.3 billion in agriculture, $2 billion in sugar, and $300 million in rice,” he said.

“In agriculture, we’re going to create 180,000 jobs in the next four years in Nigeria. African governments need to invest in infrastructure, education, economic stability,” he added.

http://businessdayonline.com/2014/01/wef-2014-negative-perception-robs-nigeria-africa-of-viable-investments-dangote/?goback=%2Egde_1968968_member_5832254407604998145#%21

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Alecto Minerals eyeing initial drilling at Wayu Boda gold project

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By Giles Gwinnett

The 945.5 sq km project is a joint venture with gold group Centamin, which is required to fund US$1.8 million to maintain an initial 51% interest and field work has started, Alecto said.

The exploration camp has been set up and all the ancillary support equipment for the core drill rig is on site.

Full details of the proposed programme are being finalised and will be announced in due course, it added.

So far, the company has conducted trenching, geophysics, and geological mapping which focused on the northern 15% of the licence areas where there are extensive artisanal workings.

Alecto chief executive Mark Jones said: “The commencement of field work at the prospective Wayu Boda gold project in Ethiopia symbolises the start of an exciting campaign managed by Centamin, which provides Alecto with exposure to the value upside potential present within the licence area without the expenditure.

“Drilling is anticipated to commence in the near future, and we look forward to divulging the full details of the forthcoming drilling programme in due course.”

Earlier on Thursday, the firm said it was confident of increasing the resource at its Kossanto gold prospect in Mali after receiving assays results for nine holes recently completed.

The drilling was carried out on the Gourbassi East target and Jones said the results confirmed the gold mineralisation extends to the south-west of the original resource area.

Shares dipped 10.26% to 1.75p.   Register here to be notified of future Alecto Minerals articles.

http://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/51522/alecto-minerals-eyeing-initial-drilling-at-wayu-boda-gold-project-51522.html

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Parliament approves loan agreements worth USD half a billion

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The House of People’s Representatives approved loan agreements worth USD half-a-billion on Tuesday, secured from various international financiers for the implementation of vital countrywide projects.

The major project areas include road construction, education, sustainable land use management and development schemes.

Norway gives duty free privilege to Ethiopian exports

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Mahlet Fasil

The Norwegian government says it would allow trade preferences to Ethiopian export products for unlimited period of time. At a press conference attended by representatives of the two countries, it was mentioned that paramount importance will be given to strengthening the trade and investment relations of the two countries.

In 2012, the total trade turnover between the two countries stood at only $58 million USD. Though Ethiopia’s exports to Norway have shown some progress as of late, its imports from Norway declined to $2.7 million USD in 2012 from $4.2million USD in 2004, showing a negative rate of growth by about 35%.

Gashaw Debebe, Secretary General of Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Association (ECCSA),said during the event organized to brief businesses on the privilege the Norwegian government accorded to Ethiopian exports, strengthening the trade and investment relation of the two countries was important. It is an established fact that trade has proved to be one of the most effective tools to foster development, according to Gashaw. According to him, increased trade between and among developed and developing countries enhances reciprocal-export earnings; knowledge and technology transfer; diversified economic base and acceleration economic growth.

Processed Honey and coffee and flowers are some of the most famous Ethiopian products in the Norwegian markets.

http://addisstandard.com/norway-gives-duty-free-privilege-to-ethiopian-exports/

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Norway to Co-Chair Human Rights and Democracy Sub Group in Ethiopia with the European Union

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Through this role, Norway is actively engaged in human rights and democracy issues in Ethiopia

As of November 2013, the European Union has assumed the role as Co-Chair for the Human Rights and Democracy Sub Group in Ethiopia, after the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Norway and EU will Co-Chair the group and regularly bring together partners working on human rights and democracy issues in Ethiopia.

The Human Rights and Democracy Sub Group is a sub-group of the Ethiopian Partners’ Group, which reports to the Development Assistance Group (DAG). Norway has co-chaired the group since 2011. Through this role, Norway is actively engaged in human rights and democracy issues in Ethiopia.

The objectives of the Group are to share information on recent human rights and democracy related events, actions and plans, harmonize efforts to monitor human rights situation and follow-up human rights allegations in the country. Each meeting has a thematic focus and a relevant speaker is invited to introduce a topic. Topics which have been addressed over the last year are:

• Civil Society in Ethiopia

• Resettlement and Villagization

• Federalism, Decentralization and Local Authorities

• Media, Press Freedom and Journalist Culture in Ethiopia

• Ethiopia’s National Human Rights Action Plan • Ethiopia’s Structural and Political Framework focusing on the Constitution and Ethnicity

• Ethiopia’s Universal Periodic Review – 2009 and upcoming 2014 – Civil society’s report

• Religious development in Ethiopia focusing on Islam and relations to the State and the Orthodox Church.

(Embassy of Norway)

http://addisstandard.com/norway-to-co-chair-human-rights-and-democracy-sub-group-in-ethiopia-with-the-european-union-2/

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Busy day for House as three crucial laws passed

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On Tuesday the House of Peoples’ Representatives endorsed three important proclamation bills, namely the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), the African Union Non-Aggression and Common Defense Pact, and the Livestock Marketing law.

The House passed the new tobacco controls with a majority vote after several years of advocacy by various groups, who lobbied the government for legislation to regulate tobacco products in Ethiopia.

Omo Kuraz Sugar Development Project benefiting pastoralists in the area

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Gashaw Aychilihum 01/25/14

The Omo Kuraz Sugar Development Project, which is underway in Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples National Regional State, is one of the sugar development projects carried out by Sugar Corporation.

The project, which will have five sugar factories when fully completed, covers a total area of 175 hectares of land for its sugarcane plantation.

Lusoru Kuta who is a native of the project area, South Omo Zone, is one of the beneficiaries of the job opportunity created by the project.

He is among the graduate tractor operators, who were trained at Chancho, Ethiopian Roads Authority Training Center, for three months. The training was fully sponsored by Sugar Corporation to benefit local community youths through working in the project.

Lusoru, a father of a son says, “Before I started working in Omo Kuraz Sugar Development Project, I was a pastoralist. I spent most of my time moving from place to place to look for water and pasture for my cattle.”

After becoming an employee of the Omo Kuraz Sugar Development project, he is now running a settled and a better life. He also pays his younger brother’s school fee. According to the custom of his Gnagatom community, owning large number of cattle is a symbol of hard working and wealth. He is now regularly buying cows and oxen to show that he is a hard worker as well as wealthy.

Like Lusoru, Tsehaynesh Yeltona, 28, is among the pastoralist’s youths benefiting from the project underway in her local area.

Tsehaynesh, according to the custom of her community, was given to be a wife to a man fourfold older than her when she was 12 years old.

Her parents had received 38 cattle and a Kalashnikov (AK-47 rifle) as a dowry out the marital arrangement of their daughter, Tsehaynesh. However, according to Tsehaynesh, she refused to be married to an old man for which she suffered physical and psychological harassment.

Tsehaynesh who is currently married to another person of her preference is working as a receptionist in the sugar development project site at Salamago District. In fact, she says she is paying back from her salary the dowry that her parents had received from the man she was once supposed to marry.

Besides her personal employment at the Omo Kuraz Sugar Development Project, she speaks of the benefits the pastoralist community obtained as a result of coming together through the villagization program.

“The living style of our society was a scattered one and based on moving from place to place to get water and pasture for cattle. Now, this way of living is transforming to a settled and mixed agriculture. The community has started farming using irrigation facilitated by the project. They get potable water in their village any time they need. This has reduced the load of work for women and saved the time they used to spend to fetch water. They are also happy to get grinding mill in their village,” She said.

The Omo Kuraz Sugar Development Project has currently, created job opportunity for about ten thousand citizens like that of Lusoru and Tsehaynesh.

General Manager of the Omo Kuraz Sugar Development Project, Ato Nuredin Asaro, says besides its main goal which is producing sugar the project is benefiting the pastoralist communities in the project area.

The social institutions and infrastructures built by the project in three villages for the community are indicative of the commitment of the project to the local community, he said.

“Prior to the construction of the Sugar Factory number one, what the project did was arranging farmland for pastoralists. In addition, in all the three villages, we build social institutions like water facilities for human and cattle, schools, health centers and grinding mills. These all facilities we have done show that we are committed to make the pastoralist community benefit from the project” he adds.

To make the community benefit more from the project for long time, special attention is given to education, the project manager stresses.

“Currently, many children got the chance of education in schools built by the project. Especially, the number of female students enrolled is very encouraging” Ato Nuredin said.

The Corporation’s Deputy Director General of Public Organization, Ato Damene Darota, on his part said, the pastoralist community residing in the area were not beneficiaries of any development for long time. The Corporation is working aggressively to fundamentally change the long standing problem in lack of development.

South Omo Zone Administrator Ato Moluka Wubneh says the Omo Kuraz Sugar Development Project is bringing bright future for pastoralists living in gloomy situation for a long time.

Pastoralists who resides in villages are benefiting from the social institutions and infrastructures. “In pastoralist areas of our zone, it was difficult to get 20 students in a school. Now in villagization areas, the number of students is increasing dramatically. This shows the success of the villagization,” he adds.

The Omo Kuraz Sugar Development Project has from the outset embraced the local community which has an immense significance in achieving its goals in sugar development.

http://aigaforum.com/articles/omo-kuraz-dev.php

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Weak road contractors to be banned from future projects

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The Ministry of Transport revealed on Tuesday that the government is no longer willing to grant road construction projects to contractors who have demonstrated weak performance or caused delays, which regularly lead to the authorities incurring extra expenses.

The Minister for Transport, Workneh Gebeyehau, appeared before the House of People’s Representatives (HPR) where he responded to several questions posed by members of parliament (MPs).

A conveyor belt deposits white potash into storage piles at ICL Fertilizer’s Dead Sea Works, part of Israel Chemicals Group, on the Dead Sea. (pictured, above)

.Partnership with Canadian firm would help reduce ICL’s dependence on the Dead Sea, amid talk of raising Israeli royalty fees

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An increased crop harvest is expected in this crop season. The increment of food grain is said to be an outcome obtained as a result of the concerted efforts of all actors in the sector including the government following a decline in the past crop season.

Since last year, the government has been helping farmers to adopt modern way of farming by applying modern farming technologies. As a result of such efforts food grain harvest has increased this year by 10 percent or 22.9 million quintals.

Although last year’s total farmed land was less than that of this year by only one percent the yield harvested was considerably low compared to that of this year. This year the total area covered with crops was 12.4 million hectares.

One of the factors that led to an increase in the crop harvest this year, was the fact that the government was able to timely provide the farmers with agricultural inputs including select seeds and fertilizers. Accordingly 971 metric tonnes of chemical fertilizer, 37 million metric tonnes of compost and more than 2 million quintals of select seed were distributed to the farmers.

Moreover, the government was able to help the farmers adopt row sowing techniques. A command post which was headed by the Prime Minister and a delegation that is structured up to Keble level was also playing its own role in the evaluation and monitoring of performance in the sector.

This, in fact, implies the fact that the government in particular and other stakeholders in general had a concerted efforts in introducing improved farming technologies to the farmers.

In 2004/2005 (Ethiopian Calendar) the agriculture sector in general had weak performance. In these two years, although it was planned to achieve the Growth and Transformation Plan of achieving crop production growth by 8.0 per cent or 245 million quintals the performance was only 231 quintals or 5.9 per cent.

Due to the increased work done in terms of mobilization of human and material resources the government set a plan to harvest 277 million quintals of crop which is 20 per cent higher compared to that of the previous years. Accordingly, the Central Statistics Agency’s pre-harvest assessment estimates production to be far more than that of the last year or any harvest seasons in the past.

According to the Agency’s report, yields of spring season, irrigation farms, coffee, vegetables, root vegetables and fruit products are not included in the pre-harvest assessment that is anticipated to grow by 10 per cent.

A total of around 254.2 million quintals is expected to be obtained in this harvest year exceeding by 22.9 million quintals that of last year.

The price of products is determined by the demand and supply. That implies when the supply side increase there is always fall in price. Due to this very fact, the increased production of food grain is estimated to encounter a fall in price.

This fall in price is anticipated to take place as a result of the increment in grain yield of this harvest year which may affect the farmer’s benefit as the increment may result in the fall of price of grain products.

Following the expected rise in the yield of agricultural products this year, the Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise has plans to buy a large volume of grain from farmers after signing agreement with farmer unions established at different regions of the country.

The government has settled a budget of around 6.8 billion birr to buy grain products both from the local and international markets.

The government’s intervention in the grain market is perhaps, not a new phenomenon. Since the year 1999 E.C when the price of wheat rose to 800 to 900 per quintals, the government was working to balance the market of grain. The 2006 harvest season is estimated to bring comparatively larger production of grains. Out of this increment in production of grain, consumers will have benefited from price reduction of the grain.

Is the current price of food grain at its healthier state? Has the huge budget allocated for market intervention benefited both the consumers and the farmers. Does it really benefit the consumer? What is the benefit of the government intervention in the grain market?

For such and related questions this reporter stayed for a while with Ephrem Welde-Silase, Advisor to the Minister of Finance and Economic Development.

Ephrem Wolde-Silase said that intention of buying grain crops is aimed at controlling the unexpected fall in price of grain as it would ultimately affect the farmer.

Asked how the government’s intervention can help in regulating the market Ephrem explained that the government intervenes in the grain market to balance the market through conserving grain in a bid to avoid unexpected fall in price witch may come as a result of surplus supply of grain. According to Ephrem the government intervenes in the market through buying the farmers’ food grains, storing and later selling to the consumers.

“When a free market system is unable to be functional there is a way by which the government temporarily intervenes in the market and later withdraws itself when the price becomes stable then leaves both the demand and supply to the consumer and supplier,” he added.

The government is intervening in the market not only when there is a fear of price fall due to the expected rise in supply but also when the price of grain specially that of the wheat increases. Since 2005 E.C the government has imported a total of 21 million quintals of wheat to stabilize the grain market. The government was also responsible for fairly distributing wheat to flour factories and direct consumers as well as fixing the price of bread, as Ephrem indicated.

“This 21 million quintals of imported wheat has contributed a lot in stabilizing the market at that time. Had this amount of wheat not been imported, the price of grains would have increased by more than the current price which becomes very dangerous to the society. So intervention is important, ”said Ephrem.

In a given country, one of the measurement tools to the stability of the macro economy is the rate of inflation. Since our countries inflation rate is a single digit inflation Eprem said, the rate of inflation in Ethiopia can be termed as the healthier one. Last year November inflation rate was 8.6 per cent and inflation rate of the same month this year was around 6.5 per cent. He also said that the intervention of the government is highly important to curb the market shortage as the abuse of market power and in-existence of modern market in the country may result in imbalance of market. He stressed that the government’s main intention in buying grain from the farmers is to save foreign currency and balance the market price in the country.

Source: 

http://www.ethpress.gov.et/herald/index.php/herald/development/5711-government-intervention-in-the-grain-market-is-it-serving-its-purpose

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Related posts:

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-    Move over quinoa, Ethiopia’s teff poised to be next big super grain

-    Agricultural Transformation Agency Looks to ECX for Contract  Farming Facility

-    Ministry of Agriculture Launched Wheat Productivity Initiative

-    USAID Launches Project to Support Wheat Processing

-    Supplier Defaults on Subsidised Wheat Imports

-    No shortage of wheat: MoFED

-    Africa- Turning eyes to wheat production for food security

-    Wheat for food security in Africa

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One way of ensuring economic strength in any given country is to export more goods services and than what are imported. The on going accession process of the country to joining the WTO was the blistering issue that triggered attendants to vehemently speak out their support on one hand and their concerns on the other. It so happened on the 4th Executive Idea Exchange Forum which was held on December 20 2013 at Eshetu Chole Hall, College of Business and Economics, Addis Ababa University under the theme “Implication of WTO accession for Ethiopian Business” in which high government officials, academicians, business people, development promoters and post graduate students participated.

As the world is becoming a small village as a result of globalization, there seems to be no choice but joining the group and becoming a family. The hypothesis is that the phenomenon of globalization according to some analysts, is the result of the booming technologies in the western world. Some claim that countries in the world would remain dependent on those technologies invented by industrialized countries which in turn gives advantage to the developed countries to continue dominating the rest. Similarly, as some claim the world is becoming one small village and is being ruled by the world’s largest organizations, such as WTO.

The WTO?

According to Geremew Ayalew, Director General of Trade Relations & Negotiation, Ministry of Trade the WTO is an organization having the objective to expand trade in goods and services with the objective of sustainable development. Geremew added that the WTO also aims to raise standard of living, by ensuring a large and steadily growing volume of real income and effective demand.

“From its inception more than 60 years ago to its present form as WTO, this organization is essentially meant for trade,” said Tsedeke Yihunie Woldu, Founder of Flintstone Engineering & Homes. Tsedeke added that contrary to popular belief, WTO may not always lead to more development let alone equitable development. It only leads to more trade among the member countries.

Yabowork Haile, Managing Director, Gasha MFI (Micro Finance Institution), on his part said that the WTO is umbrella international organization for the administration of global rules of trade between nations; it provides the principal contractual obligations; and provides a platform for negotiations amongst member (144) through period rounds.” “WTO is not a charity organization, rather market administering body,” he said.

Where is Ethiopia now in its accession to the WTO?

At the forum there were presentations that supported Ethiopia’s accession to the WTO while others claimed that the country managed to register a double digits economic growth without joining the WTO, so there is no need to rush and join the WTO. Meanwhile it was noted on the forum that the country has started the accession process some ten or so years before.

“Application for Observer Status was made in October 1997 two years after the establishment of WTO; and the formal application for accession was made in January 2003,” said Geremew, while he explaining the country’s status in the process of accession.

According to Geremew, the WTO accession is not an end by itself; it should rather be viewed as a means to accelerate economic development. For example, he said, the per capita of China, Cambodia and Vietnam showed increment after its accession to the WTO; while the per capita of countries such as Nepal and Cape Verde decreased. “Whether we are in or outside the WTO, we are abiding by the rules and regulations of the multilateral business rules internationally,” noted Geremew.

Geremew explained the significance of the country’s being a WTO member by citing the country’s Foreign Affairs & National Security Policy & Strategy (2002), that goes, “… The efforts in our country to bring about rapid development, democracy and good governance cannot be seen outside the regional and global contexts. In the process of globalization, the world economy has become interconnected and an international division of labor has been introduced. It is impossible to operate outside of this context. “ … We cannot attain development and democracy by closing our doors and taking refuge in our mountains. It is only when we accept the fact that we have no choice but to enter the global economy, and when we aim to transform ourselves from the state of dependency to that of being a producer, and a better producer in time.” Geremew further explained about the advantage of being a member to WTO that through fully exploiting the opportunities globalization provides us, lessening the constraints it creates, and becoming active participants in the process of globalization. Hence a policy that fully exploits the opportunities globalization provides us and that withstands the negative effects of the process, is useful and appropriate as is stated in the country’s foreign affairs and national security strategy.

Noting that the WTO is a huge economy of the world, Geremew told the attendants that 98% of the world trade is in the WTO, where seven big powers i.e., the United States, Australia, Canada, the EU, Japan, China and Russia together account for more than 70 per cent of world trade. Besides, he said WTO represents is 98 per cent of global GDP and, 96 per cent of the world’s population.

He, therefore, accentuated on the very need for Ethiopia to join the WTO and benefit from it as the organization is the world’s leading economy. “This signifies that it does not worth staying outside the multilateral system and is time to be part of the rule based family,” he said. Above all, he stressed the significance of joining the WTO by quoting the note from what is referred as the Lamy-Test, “accession should make countries better off, not worse of.”

What are the advantages of joining the WTO?

The forum also discussed the benefits and challenges of joining WTO for the Business sectors. It was noted that exporters will have more predictable access to foreign markets, and the WTO rules restrain arbitrary and discriminatory foreign practices to the business sectors. Plus to this, they will have better information on foreign market development and others.

The accession to WTO has its own positive and negative effects. Noting the potential advantages of joining the WTO, Geremew said that an acceding country will expand its trade in goods and services with the objective of sustainable development; and it also raises the standard of living of its people by ensuring a large and steadily growing volume of real income and effective demand. On top of this, the acceding government will have sustainable and predictable market access; and it can also build the confidence of investors and thereby attract foreign direct investment, FDI. Moreover an acceding country will improve the competitiveness of its local industries.

For domestic producers, more transparency on trade related regulations, having competitive service sectors to support their activities, developing their confidence for having stronger intellectual property laws, and improved access to foreign components and inputs are among the merits that accession to the WTO can offer.

Likewise, Zemedeneh Negatu, EY Managing Partner of Transaction Advisory Service, on his part asked, “how do we say that we are out of WTO, which constitutes 90 per cent of the world’s capital as a global community?” he said joining the WTO is by far better than not doing so. “It is inevitable for us to join WTO in a couple of years time; but we must be smart on our negotiations.” He suggested that job creation is the safety net that the government of Ethiopia has to think of in order to mitigate the impact of joining the WTO. Moreover, effective governmental machinery is needed to support negotiations; accession requires considerable strengthening of institutional infrastructure.

Zemedeneh urged the private sector in the country to be alert to follow what is going on in the global economy and update themselves accordingly. Ethiopia’s private sector needs to create juncture and make partnerships with the global businesses, according to Zemedeneh. Citing Ethiopian Airlines as a good example for its success in competing in the global market, he suggested the private sector to follow suit leaving aside the concern of joining the WTO. “If we do not join WTO, opportunities like AGOA might be taken away by the Americans.”

Tsedeke on his part stated how the country can get benefit from joining the WTO. “The country can_ benefit from WTO accession in four aspects: The accession streamlines government policy towards fair trade ; alerts local businesses from their complacent slumber to be competent in price and quality ; offers consumers and local businesses opportunities to get inputs from foreign suppliers; and finally, if all the three stages go unchecked by vested interests, makes national businesses become competitive enough to enjoy a predictable international market opened up by WTO accession as per the negotiated terms.”

It was also disclosed on the forum that the accession requires alignment of national legislation with WTO rules and commitments. Therefore, identifying conflicts between existing laws, regulations, practices, and preparing new laws and amending existing ones is said to be the responsibility of the government.

What are the challenges the private sector faces from joining the WTO?

Zemedeneh Nigatu of EY said that challenges such as facing stronger competition, having restricted policy space in relation to tariff management and flexibility and the like are what the business sectors should be aware of. In order to lessen the impact the private sector may face as a result of Ethiopia’s joining of the WTO, he suggested that actors in the private sector must be ready to make effective dialogue on trade and trade related issues with the government and international business sectors. And at the same time, the inputs from the private sectors should help identify sensitive economic sectors, and thereby avoid the dependency on policy protection rather to prepare for competition. Adding to this, he said, the Ethiopian private sector needs to upgrade its human capital and give efficient services.

Import quotas, voluntary export restraints, technical constraints, export subsidies and administrative and other regulations (safety regulations, health regulations, and labeling requirements) are the non-tariff barriers one has to look in to apart from the tariff barriers in the accession to the WTO, according to Yabowork.

International instruments like the WTO are hardly in favor of the developing countries, Yabowork said adding that ‘instruments’ including WTO, IMF and the World Bank were established with a sense of retaining Western supremacy in the name of trade. “All the agreements under WTO are signed only when developed countries have gained comparative advantages.” For example,” he said, “when exporting, developed countries give all the reasons to reject imports, even packaging; however, to the contrary of it, during importing Ethiopia may not have the necessary capacity to check all these. Further explaining the possible negative impacts of joining the WTO, Yabowork said, “none of Ethiopia’s industrial products is in a position to compete with any of the products from developed countries. He mentioned as an example the leather industry that would be under threat if the country joined the WTO as it would fail to compete with similar products from the developed world. Noting that Agriculture is not subsidized in our unlike in developed countries, Yabowork, therefore, urged the Ethiopian negotiators to put high bound tariff in it. Otherwise, he added that our agriculture will face a big problem.

Yabowork strengthened his concerns over joining the WTO by mentioning some challenges that await the negotiators. He said not always having equal opportunities for member countries to do their business, the high threat of non-trade impact (economic, social, political especially national sovereignty), huge cost in relation to implementing the complicated trade rules, the threat of being dominated by other country’s products due to the limitedness of our agricultural products that are vulnerable to price fluctuations, and lack of competitive capacity of infant industries among others are the challenges that the Ethiopian negotiators have to bear in mind during their talks with the WTO.

Tsedeke also expressed his doubt that Ethiopian exports will fare better under WTO’s Most Favored Nation (MFN) status than they are doing now with AGOA and EBA. This may lead to the eventual collapse of the nascent private sector, he stressed.

Negotiations in the accession process

“Yes, negotiations will work,” said Tsedeke adding, “the position of the consumer, the workforce and the state enterprises (CBE, ETC, METEC, ERC, etc. ) and the endowment giants ( of EFFORT ), these positions must be well defended and negotiated to yield maximum beneficial terms.” From this may come a strong and better position that can ensure competition among investors and lead to better prices for the consumer and less entry barrier for new investors, particularly local investors who will have finally learned to be as competent as the foreigners, Tsedeke said.

“Currently, Ethiopia cannot negotiate from the position of the national business interest. Given our low productive capacity, this is a very weak position and untenable in the short term,” he added.

“I hope the negotiators will play these cards – the consumer, the labor and the few but strong state enterprises – very well.”

Yabowork also stressed the significance of negotiations on market sensitive crops.

Prof. Fesehatsion, Vice President of International Leadership Institute on his part asked whether intellectuals were made to participate in the negotiation process. The professor also stressed the need to critically analyze the socio-economic benefits and impacts of foreign investments in job creation.

“WTO, basically has been a group of cramps where we have been co-opted to join,” he said. He added that the country must retain its unique features in its effort of acceding to the WTO. Professor Fsiehatsion also said that the contributions made by initiatives such as AGOA as far as job creation is concerned were insignificant.

Sourced:

http://www.ethpress.gov.et/herald/index.php/herald/development/5723-accession-to-wto-where-smartness-will-make-a-difference

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Related posts:

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-    Economic development: The good news from Ethiopia, and what might make it even better

-    Ethiopia’s Course of Development in the Eyes of Mark Lowcock

-    FACES OF Negotiation

-    Food Subsidies Could Stall WTO Deal

-    Trading freely by 2017

-    Ethiopia’s Fourth Round Negotiations with the World Trade Organisation Delayed

-    Single Trade Policy to be Drafted

-    World Trade What It Takes for Ethiopia to Join?

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Full *.pdf file of Ethiopia’s ongoing EITI progress to date and ongoing work plan schedule here:   

http://eiti.org/files/ANNEX_Ethiopia_application.pdf

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Related posts:

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-     Israel Chemicals reportedly near accord with Allana on potash mine in Ethiopia

-     Ministry of Mines Installs New Head

-     Revised bill set to increase gov’t share in mining investment

-     Allana Potash Granted Mining Licence for the Danakhil Potash Project in Ethiopia

-     Why are mining companies losing money?

-     CSO Law Stumbling Block in Mining Transparency Application

-     Denied EITI Inclusion, Ethiopian Ministry of Mines Prepares Own Transparency Guidelines

-     Thriving Mining Sector Sees Rising Share in Ethiopia’s Economy

-     Mining Jackpot Seeks Stable Investment Regime: A Billion Dollar Bet!

-     Israel Chemicals considering potash mine in Ethiopia

-     Mining Licensing to Become Stricter in Bid to Eliminate Abuse

-     Billion Dollar Mining Mountain

-     (UPDATED) Government has slashed large scale mining income tax from 35%  to 25%

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Halfway Point Reached in Inner-City Rail Project

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-  When completed, the light rail will be able to transport 80,000 passengers an hour

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Part of the Addis Abeba Light Railway Project construction around Meskel Square.

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The construction of railway tracks for the 34.25 km of electric railway line has been undertaken in four directions in the city. Currently, over six km of railway tracks have been laid. Telephone and electric lines, as well as water pipelines, are also being laid side by side with the railway project, Abebe Mihretu, public relations service head with the Corporation, said in a press briefing held at the Council’s City Hall, located in the Piazza area of Arada District, on Thursday, January 20, 2014.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, the Corporation expresses confidence in finishing the capital’ railway system by 2015.

“Otherwise, the ongoing construction will not stop even for a minute,” Abebe said. “In fact, the contractor has been making utmost efforts to finalise the project ahead of schedule.”

Round the clock work is being carried out on some spots to speed up the completion time, Abebe said.

Currently, the difficult part of the work, which is the construction of bridges and caves, is completed. In some areas, 17 to 22-metre deep excavation have been taking place to erect bridges.

The project, which when completed could transport 80,000 passengers an hour, began in January 2012. It was estimated to cost $475 million dollars and is being overseen by the Corporation. Fifteen pc of the overall budget for the project comes from the Ethiopian Government and the rest by the Exim Bank of China.

The administration of the electric railway line will go either to the Addis Abeba City Roads Authority (AACRA) or the Corporation. So far, however, the issue remains undecided.

The North-South route begins at Menelik II Square in Piazza and ends at Kaliti, while the East-West route connects Ayat Village to Tor Hailoch. Additional lines from Menelik II Square to Shiro Meda, to the North; Kaliti to Gelan, to the South and Tor Hailoch to Lebu, to the South West, will be added to the design at a later stage.

While China Railway Group Limited (CREG) won the contract for the construction of the lines, it was the Metal & Engineering Corporation (MetEC) that was charged with supplying the tracks and the trains to transport passengers. Once complete, the tracks will be of standard size (1.435m wide) double track for the whole route.

Simultaneously, the corporation has been working with various stakeholders to prepare pathways and roads for pedestrians and vehicles, Abebe said.

Pedestrians can cross the railway either through passages left for cars and other vehicles, or alternatively through the railway stations. All the stations will have an entrance and exit from both sides of the road. The project comprises of a total of 39 stations and 18 sub-stations.

The Corporation plans to carry out Phase Two of the LRT by Ethiopians.

“To make this come true, the Corporation has been working hand in hand with the Addis Abeba University (AAU)’s Institute of Technology in training students with the basic engineering fields related to trains and railways,” says Abebe.

The Corporation describes the project as eco-friendly, since it is free from sound and air pollution.

Aside from the Addis Abeba Light Railway project, the ERC is also overseeing construction of the National Railway Project, which will connect the country through a network of eight railway corridors. The total length of the tracks will be 4,744km. The track and trains for the National Railway project will be imported from a Chinese company.

http://addisfortune.net/articles/halfway-point-reached-in-inner-city-rail-project/

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Mung Beans Become Sixth Commodity on Ethiopia’s Exchange Floor

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-  The beans, which have increased in popularity with farmers across the country, will initially be an optional commodity

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ECX trading floor welcomed mung beans as the sixth commodity.

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The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) installed mung beans as the sixth commodity to be traded on its floor on Wednesday, January 22, 2014.

The decision was made at the end of July, 2013, after the Board of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange Authority (ECEA) gave its approval. The ECEA is the supervisory body of the ECX and has the final say on whether or not new commodities can enter the trading floor.

The ECX commenced trading operations in April 2008, with coffee, sesame, maize, wheat and pea beans.

There are four quality grades for mung beans and three delivery sites, located in – Addis Abeba; Kombolcha in South Wollo Zone of the Amhara Region (376km from Addis Abeba) and Assosa, the capital of the Benishangul Gumuz Region (657 km from Addis Abeba).

The export of the mung beans has increased over the past three years. This is one of the major reasons the Board approved the decision, according to an official at the ECEA.

Studies show that 150,000 to 200,000qt of mung beans – known in Amharic as masho – grow mostly in the lowland areas of the Amhara Region. They are especially common in Debre Sina, North Shoa Zone, as well as in Qallu, in the South Wollo Zone. They are currently being cultivated in the Oromia and Benishangul Gumuz regions.

Its market value has increased since 2010/11, with farmers increasingly interested in growing it, says the official from the ECEA. Exporters, especially from Dessie, the capital of the South Wollo Zone(400km from Addis Abeba), started actively exporting mung beans. This led to a price increase and inspired many farmers to get involved in mung bean production.

The price of a quintal has gone up from 1,560 Br, in 2010/11, to a range of 2,500 – 3,000 Br now.

The Amhara Region’s Administration, as well as various NGOs, has been advocating the entrance of mung beans on to the trading floor, in order to help farmers benefit further from this boom, according to the official. The boom is also something the ECX hopes to benefit from.

Ethiopia exported 174,000qt of green mung beans in the concluded year of 2012/13 and there is high demand in India, Indonesia, Belgium and the UAE, according to data obtained from the Ministry of Trade (MoT).

“The exchange has made the best decision in adding green mung beans, since it’s a commercial crop,” Samuel Mochoma , the corporate communications manager  of the ECX, told Fortune. “It has a reasonable cost of production and is produced within a short period of 75 to 90 days.”

Green mung is less used domestically, but is a common ingredient in Chinese and Indian cuisines. It is also used to make sweets and ice cream. It is attributed with having high nutritional value, including protein content, and helps reduce cholesterol and diabetes.

Mung beans have, however, entered the ECX’s trading floor as an optional commodity. This will stay only temporarily, however, with the ECX planning to trade it as a mandatory commodity. The interval between the entrance of mung beans as an optional commodity and its progression to a mandatory commodity is designed to be used as a promotional period, according to Samuel.

“Mung bean has a promising potential for growth and changing the livelihood of the producers in the long run,” says Samuel.

Procedurally, before a commodity enters on to the trading floor, the product development team at the ECX collects samples from production areas and Mesalemia -where Addis Abeba’s largest wholesale grain market is located. A technical expert panel, comprising of individuals from the ECX, the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and the Quality & Standards Agency (QSA), will then study these. They will give advice on what quality and grading should be applied to the commodity.

Input is also gathered from traders, exporters and food processors in an industry consultation to assess the grading and quality applied. A trading contract results from these two discussions, which are then presented to the board of the ECX and eventually to the board of the ECEA for final approval.

When the decision to install mung beans to the ECX trading floor was made, the Board of the ECEA, consisting of six members, was convening for the first time under new chairman, Tefera Derebew, the minister of Agriculture. He has been appointed in place of Melaku Fenta, the former director general of the Ethiopian Revenues & Customs Authority (ERCA), who is now in prison on charges of corruption related to his stay at the ERCA.

http://addisfortune.net/articles/mung-beans-become-sixth-commodity-on-ethiopias-exchange-floor/

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Long Overdue Proclamation to Beef-Up Livestock Sector

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-  The bill will aim to remove the middlemen and, in doing so, improve the efficiency of the sector

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Although the need for a more modern and comprehensive legal instrument has been reflected on various occasions, no concrete change had come for years.

The bill, which was unanimously approved by Parliament during its 14th regular session, drives out middlemen from the livestock market and introduces auctions into the market. It aims to create heavily regulated markets outside which livestock could not be sold.

The bill, which first reached the floor of the 547-seat member Parliament on October 28, 2013, during the Parliament’s fourth session in this Ethiopian year, was tabled for further scrutiny by the Agriculture, Pastoralists & Trade Affairs Standing Committee. The Committee invited professionals and discussed the contents on November 4, 2013. Yacob Yala, minister of Trade, was one of the six people invited by the Committee to explain the contents of the bill to members.

All livestock traders are to be licensed, the livestock themselves to be registered and the transporting of animals on traffic roads prohibited, according to the bill.

“The need for scaling up the quality and supply of the livestock market has been acutely felt,” Zewdu Kebede, Committee chairperson, told members of Parliament on Tuesday. “We, thus, need a more modern and comprehensive bill, in order to transform the backward system of the sub-sector and to formulate the operators’ rights and responsibilities in the process.”

Although the old system prevailed, livestock markets across the nation have changed, with well-informed market actors coming into the scene.

The challenges, according to Dechassa Huressa, a livestock expert, who has previously worked at the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), is fluctuating prices and contraband trade.

Despite Ethiopia lead as the nation with the largest livestock population in the continent, with 52.1 million cattle, 24.2 million sheep, 22.6 million goats and 987,006 camels, according to the agricultural sample survey of 2011/12, livestock’s contribution to the economy is low. The regional distribution of these resources is also hugely uneven. Oromia tops the list in cattle, sheep and goats. Afar leads in camels. While coffee fetched the highest revenue in 2012/13, livestock ranked sixth, registering a decline of about $40 million dollar less when compared with the preceding year.

An informal cattle market, the unnecessary involvement of middlemen, price information asymmetry and illegal cross border transaction are all considered factors in Ethiopia not being able to fully tap into the potential benefits, according to the expert.

“The proclamation aims to address and solve these challenges so we can have a vibrant livestock transaction system,” he told Fortune.

Currently, Ethiopia’s livestock market chain is four tiered, according to research conducted by the now defunct Livestock Marketing Authority. By the time cattle reaches the terminal market, where consumers, butchers and exporters come to trade, prices will have been hiked significantly.

“The market chain has been too long, involving a lot of middle men,” Dechassa said. “Although not a lot of value is added to the livestock, the gap in prices between the initial market and the terminal one is substantial.”

Putting this into consideration, the bill reorganises the market as two tiers, primary and secondary, and prohibits any transaction of livestock outside of these markets.

Regional and city authorities are responsible for identifying primary markets and deciding on their number and distribution within their jurisdiction. They must make sure that these primary markets are near to cattle breeders and suppliers, are convenient for transport, lie on at least 2,500sqm space and are at an appropriate distance from residences, schools, health centres and religious institutions, according to the bill.

Gebre Nega, owner of a butcher’s shop in Kirkos District, who has been involved in the meat market business for the past 10 years, however, is sceptical that cutting out middlemen will solve the problem.

“There is a strong relationship between middlemen and breeders. They serve as a market information source and are willing to transport livestock to bring it to the terminal market,” Gebre told Fortune. “Even if an auction system is set up, they could enter into agreements with breeders and fix the prices.”

It is the Committee’s view, however, that the licensing requirement and disseminating of market information will take care of the price fixing problem.

Livestock bought through primary markets cannot be sold elsewhere, only secondary markets, the proclamation states. In addition, these livestock can only be transported through designated animal routes and can no longer travel on traffic roads.

“In our country, it is not rare to see animals out on the street, travelling side by side with vehicles and pedestrians,” Dechassa, the expert, told Fortune. “This is dangerous for passersby and can cause traffic accidents, which is why the bill prohibits it.”

Like primary markets, secondary markets will be heavily regulated. All market actors that participate in the secondary market must have a license. However, unlike primary markets, livestock that enters into the secondary market must stay there until it is completely sold.

http://addisfortune.net/articles/long-overdue-proclamation-to-beef-up-livestock-sector/

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Leather Common Waste Disposal System to be Constructed in Modjo

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All leather factories will either have to relocate to the town or build their own waste disposal systems

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The construction will begin in two weeks, after a detailed feasibly study, which was commenced two weeks ago, is finalised, Fortune learnt.

The Common Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) could cost over $42 million dollars, says Berhanu Nigus, coordinator of the Production & Productivity Sector at the Institute.

The financial support could come from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), which helped in the prefeasibility study, according to Berhanu. Otherwise, the LIDI is confident that the Ethiopian government will construct the project on its own if these do not come to fruition.

Seven stakeholders-the Ministry of Industry (MoI), Addis Abeba University (AAU), Federal Environmental Protection, UNIDO, LIDI, Addis Abeba Environmental Protection Authority and Oromia Environmental Protection Authority-are overseeing the project.

The LIDI heads the technical committee.

Funded by the UNIDO, the pre-feasibility study has been conducted by five professional international experts and four local experts in the field. It took two years to complete.

Getting all the tanneries at one site will be cost-effective in treating their waste, says Tadesse Haile, state minister for Industry.

The LIDI has set up an environmental technology directorate to oversee the project.

The next move, after they build the common waste disposal system, will be establishing an industrial zone for leather factories, according to Berhanu. The tanneries will move to the zone voluntarily, Berhanu said.

“Those that wish to stay where they are will be expected to have their own treatment systems,”he added.

Two years ago, the Institute secured 100ha of land from the Oromia Region.

“We agreed with the Modjo Town Municipality to make Modjo a leather cluster,” Berhanu said. “It will soon take off the ground, hopefully.”

The LIDI has been gathering up speed in the project process, following the reminders it has been receiving from the government.

Following the imposition of 150pc tax on semi-processed leather products, which was intended to discourage their export, the tanneries have, on several occasions, been telling the Institute that they have spent a lot of money on large machinery and cannot install the waste treatment plant, Berhanu Serjabo, the LIDI’s communication Directorate, said.

The export revenue of leather and leather products in the first quarter of the 2013/14 fiscal year amounted to $628 million dollars. This is just 71.4pc of the government’s plan for the period and 10pc lower than the same period a year ago.

After the issuance of the Environmental Impact Assessment Proclamation, new tanneries are required to build factories with waste sewerage systems.

Twelve out of 31 tanneries have a first level sewerage system; seven have a second level sewerage system, while eight of them have per first sewerage. Three factories are constructing first level sewerage system.

“But none of those levels qualify,” Berhanu, the coordinator of production sector,  said. “That explains why the study has been conducted.”

The Ministry of Environment & Forests ordered all tanneries to construct a sewerage system, to be completed by January 2014. None of the tanneries complied with this, due to alack of budget.

“The tanneries have expressed this concern to the Institute on several occasions,” the coordinator  said.

It was the decision of the Ethiopian government to impose 150pc tax on semi-processed leather to discourage its export. This forced many factories to import large machineries to produce finished leather.

“This took a huge capital investment and many failed to construct the sewerage system,” says Berhanu, the director.

Leather and leather products earned $32.1 million dollars in the first quarter of the current fiscal year. This amount has increased by $7.3 million dollars compared to the figure for the same period in the previous year.

http://addisfortune.net/articles/leather-common-waste-disposal-system-to-be-constructed-in-modjo/

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Petty Corruption Rife in Ethiopia

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-  Although the latest survey suggested that petty corruption is common, grand corruption is not an issue

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Ameha Diana, director general of Selam  Development Consultants Plc, left, and Wedo Atto,

the deputy Commissioner of FEACC during the presentation on Thursday, January 23, 2014.

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The first draft of the World Bank sponsored corruption study comes out pointing fingers at petty corruption in various government institutions, while playing down the impact of grand corruption.

The power, tax, investment and transport sectors have been identified as having the highest level of corruption, according to a draft finding by a study under the Federal Ethics & Anti-Corruption Commission (FEACC).

Employees of the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo) have been identified by the study as being frontrunners in asking for unofficial payments, with an average of 10 bribe requests for a single respondent in the study. The EEPCo is also the organisation with the highest average number of foreign companies seeking its services.

Traffic police, on the other hand, have asked more of the respondents for bribes than any of the entities surveyed, according to the report.

The draft report, which included the responses of 350 foreign investors, took two and half months to produce. The final report is expected to be released a month after the World Bank approves its finalisation according to the guidelines.

“Around 16.6pc of the respondents reported a total count of 370 requests with an average of six bribe demands per respondent,” said the draft study released on Thursday, January 25, 2014, at the Hilton Hotel, under the title “Perception of the Level of Corruption by Foreign Investors in Ethiopia”.

Six percent of the respondents also reported that employees of the Ethiopian Revenues & Customs Authority (ERCA) had asked them for money- a total count of 54 times for customs licenses and 49 times for tax inspection.

The findings of the draft study, nevertheless, indicated that grand corruption is not a threat to Ethiopia, as none of the respondents reported confronting it.

“Petty corruptions exist in almost every office,” said Ameha Diana, director general of Selam Development Consultants Plc, which conducted the survey. “With only some institutions standing out in level of corruption, Ethiopia is freer than several other countries as far as corruption is concerned.”

Judges and court officials, employees of standards and safety offices, those in the water and sewerage agency and the state telecommunications company, Ethio Telecom, have also been identified as asking for bribes.

Employees involved with customs and trade licenses, land acquisition, licensing authorities and tax agencies, as well as government procurement have not been immune to allegations of bribery. The results reveal that employees in these agencies are collecting bribe money ranging from 5,000 to 7,000 Br.

“These employees can get paid a maximum bribe of 20,000 to 50,000 Br,” the draft study said.

“The Commission’s strategic focus areas are taxation and revenue collection, the justice sector, procurement in major infrastructural projects, land administration and financial management,” Wedo Atto, the deputy Commissioner, said in his opening remark at the launching of the draft study.

Back in 2012, the second nationwide corruption survey, which was commissioned by the Commission and conducted by a Tanzanian-based US company, Kilimanjaro International Corporation (KIC), disclosed that a considerable number of the public had to make extra payments in the form of gratification to public institutions..

The judiciary, law enforcement community, municipalities and the ERCA were identified as the places most people perceived as being prone to corruption and inefficient public service delivery, according to that survey.

The Commission, nevertheless, wants more than one research to point to similar problems before it takes any measures, says Berhanu Assefa, Director of Ethics Education & Communication Affairs.

The World Bank (WB), Department for International Development (DFID), Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) collaborated with the FEACC in conducting the latest survey.

http://addisfortune.net/articles/petty-corruption-rife-in-ethiopia/

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Investors Told You Snooze, You Lose

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Fitsum Arega, director general of the Ethiopian Investment Agency

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Investment is   a core area through which Ethiopia aims to affect the process of transformation, from an agrarian to an industrial economy. With an ambitious five-year plan, which stipulates projected gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 11 to 15pc each year from 2010 through 2015, Ethiopia aims to extend vast investment opportunities, primarily in the agricultural and industrial sectors.

If seen next to the recent situation at the Ethiopian Investment Agency (EIA) -the governmental body mandated with the duty of approving and issuing investment permits and providing registration services to newly incorporated business organisations – this plan is far from progressing in a smooth manner. Around2,500 investment licenses were revoked by the Agency for two reasons – failure to renew licenses and remaining idle after receiving licenses.

The revocation has resulted in potential investors pulling out of planned projects. For the Agency, the measure constitutes ensuring that a proper service, finance and investment land is available for active investors.

“All of them have stayed idle for over four years,” says Getahun Negash, the public relations director at the Agency.

The Agency did not strictly enforce the two year limitation, decreed in proclamation 769/2012 and ratified in September 2012, for what an anonymous official said was the Agency’s desire to not disrupt new and already committed investors who were on the right track, based on the Agency’s assessment. The Agency makes its assessment once every six months.

The Agency tolerates lapses in license renewal after the second year, only if they are in the process of acquiring land and other materials, or if there are other compelling reasons, says an official at the Agency.

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The Agency, which is also authorised to approve foreign investments and facilitate the acquisition of land by providing all other pre and post-approval services to investors, took back the land received by all of the revoked investors, as well as other benefits.

“They will also be expected to pay tax for machineries they imported using the duty-free offer,” Getahun said.

Although investors, for their part, have reasons for delaying engagement in the projects, ranging from delays in land acquisition to procurement delays, a number of them, including Ameha Hailesellasie, owner and general manager of Sheba Tour & Travel Agency, also attributed the negligence in renewing their licenses to the failure of the Agency to remind them to do so. Yenegew Sew Education SC, which lost a plot of land it had leased, said the problem was that it needed more time before it could begin the construction of a university building, according to its general manager, Ali Endris.

The proposition for expansion of the school to include a university college came in 2003. It then leased a 1,700sqm plot at Lebu in Lafto District in 2008 on a 50-year agreement. Yenegew Sew lost the plot, as well as 700,000 Br out of an advance 1.2 million Br it had paid for the lease.

A similar case emerges from the Abyssinia Steel Rolling Mills Plc., which took a license to manufacture aluminium, household products and construction materials in 2011. Its lofty ambitions failed to take off due to the unavailability of raw materials and foreign currency issues, Varindra Tiwari, managing director of the Company, said.

The Agency complains that it has a limited capacity to supervise all those that have taken licenses, says Getahun. Moreover, some have been licensed by regional investment bureaus.

Adinas Agera Tour & Travel Agency is one of those who readily admit to failing to renew their licenses on time. Licensed in 2010, the Agency was listed as one of the 2,500 that could lose their license if they did not come up with convincing excuses, on February 7, 2014. His license has already been revoked.

In other cases, investors have simply forgotten that they had taken licenses in the first place. This is what happened to Abadir Mohammed, who took out a license to engage in a tour & travel agency operation named Abadir Tour & Travel Agency, but engaged in some other business with foreign investors.

The Agency says that most of the investors, whose licenses it revoked for failing to begin operations, had already left Ethiopia.

The Agency has also become stricter, requiring applicants to show a deposit of the capital investment and to submit an action plan and proposal, says Getahun.

“We issue licenses only after analysing actual plans,” says Getahun. “We also do so only after ensuring that investors have a deposited initial capital.”

The public relations officer could not respond to some of the concerns raised by investors, citing the difficulty of reviewing all of their documents.

The Agency has issued 5,197 licenses in the last five years, 4,057 of which are to foreign investors; the remaining 1,140 to local investors.

Only 672 out of the total have commenced operations, while 517 are in the implementation stage. About 4,008 of them are in the pre-implementation process. The number of those revoked is a whopping 1,593.

For Daniel Alemayehu, an expert on investment issues and a former employee of the Agency, the measure to revoke licenses opens room for other investors who never had the opportunity to get  contracts from the Agency.

“But where I have a concern is with the root cause of problems on the part of investors to engage in investment activities,” he said.

The Agency should identify the root cause for the failure of the investors to engage in their investment within the time limit they are given. It should identify their problems for not renewing their license on time. Such follow ups will help to minimise the gaps between the Agency and the investors, according to the expert.

Providing necessary support for investors, by way of encouraging them was another suggestion from the expert.

When the Agency cancelled the licenses of 114 investment projects that have been idle for five to 10 years, in July 2013, half of the revoked licenses, all issued by it, were in Addis Abeba, with the other half in Oromia.

Some, like Alemayehu Arega, the general manager of Adinas Agera Tour & Travel Agency, whose license was revoked for failure to renew on time, says the Company is ready to resolve the matter by working together with the Agency. Likewise, the Agency is ready to address such issues, Getahun says.

http://addisfortune.net/columns/investors-told-you-snooze-you-lose/

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Investment from China beneficial to Africa

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BEIJING, Jan. 27 (Xinhuanet) — Ethiopian president Mulatu Teshome believes China’s investment in Africa will transform the fortunes of the continent.

He equates the role that the Export-Import Bank of China and the China Development Bank play in building infrastructure to that of the Marshall Plan through which US aid to Europe was channeled after the devastation of World War II.

“These institutions are playing a very significant role in Africa’s economic development, ” he said.

“There are no big words from either side about this but in the financing of these big heavy projects, it is the same.”

Mulatu, who became president in October, was speaking in the Presidential Palace in Addis Ababa, which was once the residence of emperor Haile Selassie.

The 57-year-old is very much a Sinophile, speaking fluent Chinese and having spent more than a decade in Beijing, first as a student and lecturer and then as his country’s ambassador in the mid-1990s.

He says China, through such bodies as the Forum on China-Africa Corporation, has moved the aid agenda away from humanitarian relief to trade and business.

“The old colonial masters, or the Western powers, shaped international aid architecture in the 1980s and 1990s, which was very much a humanitarian aid agenda. The Chinese have changed it to one that is based on economic interdependence through trade and investment,” he said.

Mulatu, who met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Addis Ababa earlier this month, says China’s approach is different from that of the World Bank and other Washington-based institutions.

“There are no strings attached to the investment or the aid China is giving African countries,” he said.

“All these countries have got their own domestic policies, different political views and attitudes and China is basically complying with all of them.”

Mulatu came back from Turkey, where he was ambassador, to become Ethiopia’s fourth president, succeeding Girma Wolde-Giorgis, who had completed two six-year terms.

Mulatu’s China connections began when he came to study at the Beijing Language and Culture University almost immediately after Chairman Mao died in 1976.

“From the airport we went directly to Tian’anmen Square, where the body of Chairman Mao was lying in the Great Hall of the People. It was within 15 to 20 days of his death,” he said.

He went on to study for a degree in philosophy and political economy, followed by a master’s and a doctorate in international law at Peking University.

“When I first went the ‘cultural revolution’ (1966-76) was no longer in practice but many of my classmates were telling us stories about the good things about going to the countryside and serving the people. I witnessed the coming of Deng Xiaoping Theory and the opening up of China to the outside world,” he said.

Mulatu said he has been left with a lasting respect for Chinese culture and the people.

“What makes me admire the Chinese people is that they are hard working, very patriotic and whether they are rich or poor, they all say they work for the motherland.”

The future president went on to study at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the United States before embarking on a political career, which has included being agriculture minister as well as speaker of Ethiopia’s upper chamber, the House of Federation.

Trade between China and Ethiopia has grown more than 25-fold over the past decade to $1.8 billion.

Mulatu said China is helping Ethiopia transform its economy, particularly with manufacturing investment. Chinese shoemaker Huajian Group is looking to create 100,000 jobs in five years.

“What we are witnessing in Ethiopia nowadays in terms of the country’s manufacturing capacity would have been unimaginable 10 years ago. Government officials would have never conceived we could have a single factory where 10,000 workers are employed under one roof,” he said.

He said Ethiopia, as with other African countries, can capture a significant proportion of the 80 million manufacturing jobs that China is expected to shed over the next few years because of rising labor costs.

“We are going to phase in while China is phasing out. The Chinese textile industry cannot be globally competitive if it continues with a high cost of production.”

He said Chinese companies can set up in Ethiopia and sell to the US and European Union and avoid the import duties they would face if they were based in their own country.

“Once they are fully integrated into the Ethiopian economy, what they make won’t be called a Chinese product but Ethiopian.”

Mulatu said that Ethiopia can shed its 1980s Live Aid famine relief image on the back of manufacturing success and become a middle-income country.

“By then Ethiopia will be very different from what it is today,” he said.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-01/27/c_133076348.htm

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Changing the rules of engagement on infrastructure

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By Wang Chao and Andrew Moody (China Daily)

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Chinese companies blaze new trail in Ethiopia, taking on more projects

Big-ticket infrastructure projects have often been the preferred calling card for Chinese companies in overseas markets such as Africa. But with Africa entering a new round of development, many Chinese companies are changing tack and looking to participate in more developmental and societal projects.

Although there are roads, bridges, railway lines and various other government buildings that stand testimony to the Chinese capabilities, companies are now gearing up to participate in projects such as urban facilities, modern transportation and manufacturing.

Sun Guoqiang, general manager of CGC Overseas Construction Group, a Chinese construction major that has been in Ethiopia for more than 15 years, says that although there are still plenty of construction projects in Africa, his company will move away from the business in five to 10 years.

“We will focus on projects in areas such as manufacturing and agriculture and leave the construction business to local companies,” he says.

The company has a sizable presence in well drilling and road construction businesses in Ethiopia. Its other main areas of operation include water supply and wind power projects.

“We cannot always focus on construction work, because it is the lower rung of the industrial ladder,” Sun says. “Take the case of China itself. Thirty years ago, most of the big infrastructure projects were built by foreign companies, but that is something you rarely see nowadays.”

The real endeavor for the CGC Overseas Construction Group is to participate in projects that boost local employment and local communities in Africa. Water supply and wind power projects are examples of this extended involvement, Sun says.

Talking about the water supply projects, Sun says that the company has moved from just drilling wells in rural areas for farmers to executing complex urban water supply projects.

According to Sun, the Chinese company has built more than 60 percent of the $200 million water supply system project for Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian government, the World Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China have jointly financed the project.

In the road and bridge construction sector, the company has played a big role in boosting local employment. It employs around 300 Chinese workers and more than 5,000 local workers.

Dwelling further on this line of business Sun says that 10 years ago the capital city had only 700 kilometers of proper roads. Now it has 1,400 km.

“The city’s plan is to have 2,100 km. I guess it still needs another 10 years to finish it,” Sun says.

The company trains local workers during construction. Some excellent ones leave the company and start their own construction business. “This happens a lot in water drilling and asphalt pavement segments,” Sun says.

To follow the government’s policy, the company is subcontracting some of its construction projects to local companies.

Wind power is a new segment that the Chinese company is betting big on in Ethiopia. As a country located in the eastern highlands of Africa with an average altitude of more than 3,000 km, Ethiopia is one of those countries that are never short of wind. But very little of it has been put to commercial use.

The company has set up the first phase of a wind power project, 80 km south of Addis Ababa, with an installed capacity of 50 megawatts. The second stage of the project is under construction. When completed, it would generate more than 153 mW of power.

Unlike CGCOC, which is banking on diversification, the China Railway Engineering Corp is looking to leave a mark by creating a completely modern landscape for Addis Ababa.

In 2007, the Ethiopian government came up with a plan for a cross-shaped city transport system composed of two light train lines.

Although there were several big international bidders for the light train project, it was eventually awarded to China Railway Engineering Corp in September 2009. The Chinese company had already made a mark in Africa during the 1960s by building the Tanzania-Zambia Railway, a major symbol of China-Africa friendship.

“As far as I know, the city light train project in Ethiopia is the only project of such a kind that we are conducting in Africa,” says Cai Qinghao, CREC project manager for the light train project.

Cai says that the company is also building roads and regular railways in Nigeria, Angola and Uganda, but none is as advanced as this project, which is more of an above ground version of city subway systems.

The designed length of the $475 million project is 31 km and construction has already started. The whole project is expected to be finished by 2015. When completed, the rail system is expected to reduce traffic congestion in Addis Ababa, a city with a population of nearly 3 million.

“The cross-shaped light railway system will help people to come in and go out of the city. It will also add a modern touch to the old city,” Cai says, adding that some big Chinese cities such as Chongqing, Dalian and Shenyang all have similar city light train systems.

Cai, who has been in Africa for two years supervising the project, says the biggest difficulty he has encountered is lack of raw materials and industrial products. The rails, compartments, sleepers are all shipped from China by sea.

“Local manufacturing capability is low. We have to import virtually everything from China, including steel and machinery equipment,” he says. “It increases costs and slows down the process. The only things that we get locally are food, cement and some stationery.”

More than 400 Chinese managers and engineers work side-by-side with 3,000 local workers on the project. Locals working on the project consider it to be a good opportunity because the salary for a medium-level worker is about 2,000 to 3,000 birr ($100 to $150) a month, much better than opening a roadside shop selling daily necessities. “The project has also helped Ethiopia to have its own engineers and skilled workers,” Cai says.

http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2014-01/27/content_17260930.htm

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Tigray Announces Initial Terakimti Mineral Resource Estimate at the Harvest Project in Ethiopia

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VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA–(Marketwired – Jan. 27, 2014) - Tigray Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE:TIG) (“Tigray” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce its initial National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (“NI 43-101″) compliant gold, copper, silver and zinc mineral resource estimate for the Terakimti volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposit on the Company’s 70%-owned Harvest project (the “Harvest Project”) located in the Arabian Nubian Shield in northern Ethiopia. This mineral resource estimate is contained within the first prospect discovered at the Harvest Project in 2009 and incorporates 16,495 metres of drilling in 79 diamond drill holes.

Tigray has also received positive results from on-going metallurgical testing at Terakimti. A selected suite of representative supergene and primary sulfide mineralization has yielded encouraging initial results for potential base metal concentrates produced from conventional floatation work. Results from preliminary bottle roll testing on oxide composites have yielded recoveries that indicate oxides are amenable to conventional cyanide leaching.

Tigray has now drill tested another six prospects through 4,316 metres of drilling which are not included in this initial mineral resource estimate. This testing continues in the present drill program with drilling at three priority target areas at both the Harvest and Adyabo projects (refer to Tigray’s news release dated December 4, 2013).

Highlights

• Indicated Mineral Resources of 2.131 million tonnes containing 89,477,000 lbs copper, 86,000 ounces gold, 1,130,000 ounces silver, and 66,871,000 lbs zinc.
• Inferred Mineral Resources of 3.920 million tonnes containing 76,385,000 lbs copper, 166,000 ounces gold, 2,264,000 ounces silver, and 137,459,000 lb zinc.
• Mineral Resource is defined to a depth of 300 metres and has potential to continue at depth.
• Near surface oxide gold mineralization shows potential for heap leach amenability.
• Supergene and primary mineralization produce copper concentrates (25% copper grade) through conventional floatation processes, with further optimization possible. Attractive zinc concentrates are also produced on selected mineralization.

Terakimti is defined at surface by a 800 metre surface NE-SW gossan expression, with the mineralized deposit dipping steeply to the southeast, plunging moderately northeast, and remaining open to extension down plunge at depth. The deposit is located within 7 kilometres of both a paved highway, and a high-voltage power grid line.

The Terakimti deposit is the most advanced prospect on the Harvest Project, of which Tigray owns a 70% interest. Andrew Lee Smith, President and CEO of Tigray stated, “This initial mineral resource estimate at Terakimti is a key milestone for the Company and establishes the excellent potential of the prospects we continue to discover and define in the region. Further drilling and analysis planned for 2014 will assess if the high-grade oxide resource and favourable metallurgical response defined to date presents opportunity for near-term cash flow through small-scale open pit operations at Terakimti.”

Full Press Release & details here:  

http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/tigray-announces-initial-terakimti-mineral-resource-estimate-harvest-project-ethiopia-tsx-venture-tig-1872479.htm

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Turkish company invests 1.2 bln. birr in textile sector

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 This is not the first for Turkish investors investing in textile sector

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The Turkish textile factory MNS Manufacturing P.L.C. has launched the first phase production of carpet, towel and bathrooms, polyester, fiber-line home furniture (spring mattress and sofa) investing of over 1.2 billion birr.

The company has been undertaking expansion activities in three phases around Laga Tafo area. The factory has already accomplished the task of construction and equipment installation. The factory entered first production phase and is expected to finalize phase two and three construction very soon.

MNS Project Coordinator Nursel Aslan said: “We are working very hard to finalize the whole project and make the investment generate income as quickest as possible. Investors should be very committed to succeed in Ethiopia as we do. If you are suspicious you cannot be successful.”

Asked about employment opportunities created by the factory, she said that when the factory goes fully operational it was expecting to create around 1,000 jobs only in its first phase . “So far, we have employed 400 Ethiopians, which is increasing day by day. We didn’t reach the peak. We have just started. This year, when the first and the second phases go fully operational, we will have approximately 1,200-1,500 Ethiopian workers,” she added.

Concerning the investment climate, she said that one can easily understand that there is a very good investment climate in Ethiopia. “In our first visit, September 2011, we have assessed the investment climate in Ethiopia and we have been sure that there is very attractive environment for investment. We have received a warm welcome and unreserved support from government officials at different levels from the very start up to now.”

In the past six months, 46 investors registering 7 billion birr capital received licence and land in Oromia State. The licence of 31 investors who failed to launch their respective projects have been revoked by the State Investment Commission.

Commission Communication Affairs Process Owner Mekonnen Fufa recently told The Ethiopian Herald that the measures was taken following repeated consultation and warning.

On the other hand, he said it is quite incredible to see factories like MNS having received investment licence and land and start production in a period of one year.

http://www.ethpress.gov.et/herald/index.php/herald/news/5700-turkish-company-invests-1-2-bln-birr-in-textile-sector

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African economic growth  said to remain robust in 2014

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· Ethiopia among few high performing non-oil economies

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Africa’s economy is projected to remain relatively robust in the coming two years, according to a UN report.

The United Nations World Economic Situation and Prospects 2014 ( WESP) report released at UNECA Conference Centre yesterday indicated that after an estimated growth of 4.0 per cent in 2013, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), economic growth in Africa is projected to accelerate to 4.7 and 5.0 per cent in 2015.

Growth prospects in Africa are expected to be supported by improvements in the global economic and regional business environment, relatively high commodity prices, easing infrastructural constraints, and increasing trade and investment ties with emerging economies, the report said.

Increasing domestic demand-especially from a growing class of new consumers associated with urbanization and rising incomes- and improvements in economic governance and management are other factors contributing to Africa’s growth prospects.

The report also indicated that inflation across Africa is expected to decelerate slightly from an average of 8.0 per cent in 2013 to 7.8 per cent in 2014.

The report, however, noted that the continent’s recent growth is heavily driven by commodity production and exports, but remains far below the continent’s potential.

Presenting the report, UNECA Macroeconomic Policy Division Forecasting Section Chief Adam Elhiraikia said that 20 per cent of Africa’s economic growth is still driven by commodities mainly, by extraction and oil industries.

Nonetheless growth in Africa is still failing to translate into meaningful job creation and the broad- based economic and social development needed to reduce high poverty and rising inequality rates in many countries, the report added.

Moreover, the informal sector is still large and as a result opportunities remain limited for many seeking to enter the labour market. According to the report, lack of diversification away from the heavy dependence on resource extraction or agriculture is a key reason why labour demand is not more dynamic.

The report, however, stated that despite the expected robust growth prospects, external and internal downside risks could derail progress in Africa. In relation to this, global economic slowdown, changes in the commodity prices, as well as political, civil and labour unrest can still pose a significant threat to the economic activity in several African countries.

Meanwhile, the report states that Ethiopia is one of the countries where GDP is expected to remain high in 2014. Improved agricultural and service sector spearheaded by the wholesale and retail business performance is expected to drive Ethiopia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The report said that Ethiopia’s GDP growth was 6.9 per cent in 2013, and is expected to be 6.5 per cent in 2014, and inflation is expected to pick up slightly next year to 9.5 per cent from 9.1 per cent of last year.

There are discrepancies between the figures stated in the report and those the government has set. The government has set in the Five-year Growth and Transformation Plan to register a GDP growth of over 11 per cent.

According to Haji Ibsa, Public Relations Directorate Director with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, the average GDP growth of the past three years was 10.1 per cent, which is close to its target.

The GTP has also set targets to keep inflation rate below double digit. Accordingly, taking the past three months alone as an example, average inflation rate was 6.8 per cent, according to Haji.

http://www.ethpress.gov.et/herald/index.php/herald/news/5715-african-economic-growth-said-to-remain-robust-in-2014

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Ethiopia, Algeria sign cooperation agreements

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Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Tedros Adhanom and his visiting Algerian counterpart Ramatane Lamamra signed on Sunday bilateral cooperation agreements in the areas of culture, tourism, media content exchange and capacity-building.

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• Two agricultural programs supported by the World Bank are helping to improve wheat production, enhance market access, and bridge the gap between farmers and agricultural research centers in Africa
• A regional approach helps to accelerate agricultural technology generation and transfer/dissemination
• The traditional donor focus on food insecurity has shifted to unlocking growth potential of surplus-producing areas

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ADDIS ABABA, January  23, 2013 — The lush wheat land that stretches from the rural township of Kulumsa (Assela) deep into the southeastern part of the country comprises what is dubbed the Arsi/Bale wheat belt of Ethiopia. The sea of wheat farms along the belt are dotted with barley and teff fields and stretch as far as the eyes can see.

Over the years, the region gave the best wheat yield in the country, although overall production levels were not always the same. Just few years ago, the wheat lands of Arsi/Bale were dominated by smallholder subsistence farmers cropping on fragmented farm land. Wheat, in spite of its unique suitableness to the area, was planted alongside other crops. Today, through two agricultural programs supported by the World Bank, things are changing.

A monotonous wheat farmland now defines almost the entire belt. Signs of farm technologies and mechanization are visible, as well as a hint of commercialization across the Arsi/Bale wheat lands. The yield per hectare according to agricultural workers in the region has tripled in the past three years. In fact, in some places like Sinana woreda, also inside the belt, the yield has shot from around 1.8 to 5.0 tons per hectare.

The East Africa Agricultural Productivity Program (EAAPP) and Agricultural Growth Program (AGP) work together to revolutionize the core of wheat production in the region and the country. Although currently working toward a similar end, the two programs are entirely different in their design.

The AGP is a national program implemented entirely in Ethiopia, with the objective of increasing agricultural productivity and market access for key crop and livestock products in targeted woredas (districts) with increased participation of women and youth.

Convergence of the two programs appears to be ideal for the wheat surplus region. Both programs are playing key roles in improving  productivity and increasing access to  markets, which is  the main focus of the Ethiopian government’s agricultural policy. With the aim of bringing about much needed commercialization in the sector,  AGP focuses mainly on farmer capacity building and investment on small scale rural infrastructure such as irrigation schemes, rural roads and market centers. With over $330 million allocated by several development partners including the International Development Association (IDA), the AGP is currently implemented in 96 woredas in Ethiopia.

According to Teklu Tesfaye, World Bank Senior Agricultural Specialist and AGP donor coordinator, over the past two and a half years, in the woredas where the program is implemented, farmer training centers (FTCs) have become operational, and small scale irrigation schemes have been built/upgraded.

Although encouraging progress continues throughout the region and woredas, Teklu stressed the urgent need to focus on market infrastructure. “One cannot boost productivity without access to markets,” he said. “Market infrastructure is a cornerstone to commercialization of agriculture.”

AGP’s approach to focus on specific woredas which are believed to have the potential for surplus production is an important departure from the traditional donor intervention in food insecure areas;  which has largely ignored the growth potential of surplus producing areas. In this sense, the intervention in Arsi/Bale wheat belt could indeed be considered as a revolutionary approach.

A Regional Approach

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The EAAPP is a regional program that encompasses four Eastern Africa countries; Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Funded by $30 million from IDA, the EAAPP is fundamentally initiated to promote cooperation and investment in agricultural research and technology across the four countries. Four different agricultural commodities were selected from each country; rice from Tanzania, cassava from Uganda, wheat from Ethiopia and dairy products from Kenya. Each country was then assigned to lead the research regarding and establishment of centers of excellence for the commodities.

“The country that has comparative advantage in research and production of one of the commodities out of the four, will lead the research activity,” said Assaye Legesse, team lead for the project. “But all four countries will be doing research in all the commodities and the outcome will be shared.”

The wheat center of excellence (WCoE) in Ethiopia is spearheaded by the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) where the Kulumsa Agricultural Research Center houses the main WCoE.

Ato Yonas, a model dairy farmer showcased by the DebreZeit research center, shared how he benefited from a research led by a CoE in Kenya. Yonas reportedly procured an improved breed of ox from the research center a year and half ago, he attests that the improved breed have been a good source of income as its reproductive qualities are in great demand in his village.

Ugandan-led cassava research outcomes are also gaining traction in the Ethiopian market. According to Assaye, since its introduction in the Ethiopian market, cassava is increasingly gaining popularity with an estimated 10,000 tones consumed annually in Addis Ababa alone. Among other things, cassava is now being mixed with teff to make Injera the traditional Ethiopian bread.

Dr. Alemayehu Assefa, EAAPP Research Coordinator at Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), says that usual threats to wheat crop such as diseases and pests are the main subjects of the center’s research. But, he says that these problems are not unique to Ethiopia; they are shared by many including the three participating countries in the project. The Ethiopian WCoE  is also sharing its expertise with the other countries in producing varieties of wheat which are able to withstand ecological and environmental challenges.

Sourced here:  http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2014/01/23/revolutionizing-wheat-production-in-ethiopia

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Related posts

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-     Government intervention in the grain market: Is it serving its purpose?  

-    Move over quinoa, Ethiopia’s teff poised to be next big super grain

-    Agricultural Transformation Agency Looks to ECX for Contract  Farming Facility

-    Ministry of Agriculture Launched Wheat Productivity Initiative

-    USAID Launches Project to Support Wheat Processing

-    Supplier Defaults on Subsidised Wheat Imports

-    No shortage of wheat: MoFED

-    Africa- Turning eyes to wheat production for food security

-    Wheat for food security in Africa

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   Author: E.G.Woldegebriel

ADDIS ABABA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Ethiopian farmers are preparing to plant genetically modified cotton seedlings when the rainy season gets underway in June, in a move the government hopes will boost textile and garment exports.

In early 2013, the Ethiopian parliament ratified a proclamation stating that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can be imported if the environment ministry approves their compliance with bio-safety and public health guidelines.

Late last year, Ethiopia’s Minister of Industry Ahmed Abtewe said the government was planning to use GM cotton crops as part of a strategy to boost the country’s textile sector, although testing had yet to start. Ethiopia exports both cotton fabric and garments made of cotton.

The East African nation has embarked on an ambitious five-year economic plan to boost exports from the textile and garment industry to meet a target of $1 billion by 2015. But so far it is struggling, as the domestic supply of cotton lags behind demand from industry.

Officials hope that planting GM cotton will achieve higher yields than conventional varieties.

As yet, there are no plans to introduce other GM crops in Ethiopia. But environmental activists who oppose the use of GM technology in food production fear the policy shift on cotton could open the door to more GM crops.

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), a pan-African network of NGOs and farmers’ groups covering around 50 countries, is working on an action plan to safeguard African nations’ right to define and manage their food and agriculture systems. It aims to prevent foreign firms from patenting locally used seeds and to curb the spread of GM crops.

“The GM story is being pushed around nowadays because it’s beneficial to a few companies,” AFSA coordinator Million Belay told Thomson Reuters Foundation. Around 10 seed companies – including Dupont, Monsanto and Syngenta – account for 70 percent of the global seed market, and they “want to control the rest”, he added.

Within Africa, South Africa has the most open attitude to GM crops, and is the only country to grow them on a commercial scale. But an increasing number of African states have GM research and development (R&D) capacity, including Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, Egypt and Uganda.

Others – such as Benin, Burkina Faso, Morocco, Senegal, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe – are known to have conducted field trials. The main GM crops of research and commercial interest in Africa are sweet potato, maize, cotton, soybean, pigeon pea, banana and tobacco.

CLIMATE CHANGE PRESSURES

“Africa should have its own food sovereignty because it has over 7,000 varieties of food that are eaten by African people,” said Belay, arguing that big agri-businesses are pushing to narrow those down and focus on higher productivity alone.

“We live in this age of climate change which requires diversity in plants, eco-systems and knowledge and strategy,” he added. There are some 60 different types of sorghum, for example, used for eating, making tella (a local alcoholic brew), easing pain during childbirth and other purposes.

Belay accused the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and other organisations that work with the private sector of attempting to take over food production from African states.

AGRA describes itself as an independent, Africa-based and African-led organisation, whose board of directors is chaired by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. It brings together African leaders, scientists and business people, as well as international experts in agriculture and economic development.

In an emailed response to questions, AGRA said it does not advocate for or against GMOs, but supports conventional breeding R&D that improves the productivity of locally adapted crops and involves farmers in the testing and selection process.

It said there was no conclusive evidence either way on whether GM crops are more resilient in the face of climate change. But climate impacts are real, it said, and that is why it advocates for “climate-smart” agricultural research and development.

“Conventional breeding programmes need to be producing robust improved seed with greater genetic tolerance to heat stress, colder temperatures, drought and water logging,” the organisation said.

At the same time, AGRA noted that GM crops have been grown “in a number of developed and developing countries worldwide – in some cases for more than 20 years – without concrete evidence of negative ecosystem and environmental impacts”. In fact, the use of Bt cotton, for example, has greatly reduced the need to apply harmful pesticides, it added.

Just this month, however, India’s Hindu newspaper reported that Bt cotton growers in Tamil Nadu state have suffered major losses from a new, unspecified disease.

AGRA emphasised that GM crop production should be “a wholly sovereign decision”, taken with “great care, and only after thorough and inclusive debate and discussion”.

SEED OWNERSHIP

AFSA is also critical of regional and national policymaking on seed laws in Africa, which it says favour multinational corporations to the detriment of smallholder farmers.

Belay said he had witnessed companies pressuring African governments through regional economic commissions to enable them to patent particular seed varieties.

“How can you patent something you didn’t create? Seeds were produced thousands of years ago – they’re the creation of millions of farmers, and they have been improved up to now,” he said.

AGRA, on the other hand, argued that seed policies and regulations in most African nations are outdated, and rooted in an era when the state had responsibility for the entire seed value chain.

Liberalisation of seed policies would make room for African-owned-and-operated private companies to produce high-quality certified seed that farmers can purchase at a reasonable price, it said.

AFSA, meanwhile, fears that any new rules could end up preventing small farmers from continuing their longstanding, sustainable practices of freely using, exchanging and selling seeds.

Even though Belay regrets Ethiopia’s move to start growing GM cotton, he believes the battle over GM crops in Africa is far from lost.

‘It’s a clash of a vision of two kinds of agricultural future. One says the most important thing is productivity, so for that we have to improve the seeds, supply the seeds with chemicals and if there is a problem with pests, we have to supply pesticides,” he said.

“The other view is that there’s economic, social and environmental change (happening), and changing scenarios necessitate dealing with challenges in diverse ways – meaning diverse agricultural systems, diverse knowledge systems and so on,” he explained.

(Writing and editing by Megan Rowling)

E.G. Woldegebriel is a journalist based in Addis Ababa with an interest in environmental issues.    

Sourced here:  http://www.trust.org/item/20140128102528-5o0u4/?source=hptop

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Related posts: 

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-     Turkish Company Invests 1.2 Billion birr in Textile Sector

-     Seeding Ethiopia’s Future Food Security

-     World agribusiness R&D controlled by ‘cosy cartel’

-     Overcoming productivity bottlenecks via research

-     GM crops: African opposition is a farce, says group led by Kofi Annan

-     Ethiopia – Next Stop for Textile Industry?

-     COMESA seed registration law to be debated

-     CSO in Africa to Counter Corporatisation Agriculture

-     AFSA meets in Ethiopia to oppose GM products

-     50 Turkish textile factories to relocate in Ethiopia

-     Cotton Industry in a Spin

-     Cotton trade: The road not taken

-     Why Is the Obama Administration Suddenly So Interested in African Farms?

-     Ethiopia: Cotton Production Falls Below Textile Industry Need

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New Zealand, Ethiopia to cooperate on food security

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WELLINGTON, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) — New Zealand and Ethiopia have signed an arrangement to improve agricultural cooperation and food security, New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully announced Tuesday.

McCully said in a statement from his office that he and his Ethiopian counterpart Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus signed the Food Security Cooperation Arrangement after a meeting of the African Union Executive Council in Addis Ababa Monday.

The arrangement would provide a government-to-government framework to encourage commercial partnerships between New Zealand and Ethiopian agricultural interests.

“Africa is of increasing interest and importance to New Zealand, as evidenced last year when we made the decision to open a diplomatic post in Addis Ababa,” McCully said.

“Ethiopia has one of the largest populations in Africa, some 91 million people, a fast growing economy and is situated close to key markets in the Gulf,” he said.

“This arrangement will enable New Zealand to assist in the development of commercial scale agriculture in Ethiopia, and build food security partnerships in the region.”

The arrangement coincided with the African Union year of Agriculture and Food Security.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=196800

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The Prime Minister of Finland On a Two Day Visit to Ethiopia

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The Prime Minister of Finland, Mr. Jyrki Katainen, and Finland’s Minister for International Development, Mr. Pekka Haavisto, arrived in Addis Ababa the morning of January 27. The two ministers are accompanied by a more than 20 member business delegation of representatives from companies involved in the energy, infrastructure, forest industries, agriculture and ICT sectors. Mr. Katainen and his delegation was met by Foreign Minister, Dr. Tedros before holding talks with Prime Minister Hailemariam. He met with AU Commission Chairperson, Dr. Dlamini Zuma this afternoon, and was later due to hold informal discussions with Prime Minister Hailemariam at his residence. The business delegation held talks with the EU Deputy Head of Mission and with representatives of a number of EU companies and the EU Business Forum.

The two Finland Ministers will be participating in a roundtable discussion Tuesday, focusing on cooperation between Finland and Ethiopia. This is intended to provide a platform for discussions on current developments, and it will be followed by two parallel sectoral workshops. It will provide the possibility for direct business to business meetings. During his visit, the Prime Minister of Finland will also pay a courtesy call on President Dr. Mulatu Teshome, and met with the Executive Director of the ECA, Dr. Carlos Lopes. He and his delegation will leave for Tanzania on Tuesday evening.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201401281337.html

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Ethiopia: State Minister Dewano Kedir Meets an Irish Business Delegation

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State Minister Dewano Kedir met with an Irish business delegation headed by Sean Hoy, Deputy Director of the Africa Section of the Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, on Friday (January, 24).

The State Minister welcomed the interest of Irish business investors to work in Ethiopia and he applauded the Irish Africa Section for its contribution to the promotion of trade and investment as an element in the bilateral relations of the two countries. David Moore, Director of Agricultural Magnetics Limited, noted that two Irish private companies were intending to introduce patented technology for the agricultural industry, to provide services for the distribution of materials to provide for safe production, personnel equipment and spill clean-up products.

He said this would boost agricultural production and help the country accelerate participation in local, regional and global markets. The two companies had selected Ethiopia as the major subject for their technology to demonstrate its effectiveness in increasing crop yields. State Minister Dewano suggested that the two companies should co-operate with the experts of Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Industry and Ethiopian Investment Agency to prove the feasibility of their technology. He assured the companies that the Government of Ethiopia would support their efforts. He called on the Irish business community and investors to benefit from Ethiopia’s economic development projects in the energy, infrastructure, manufacturing and tourist sectors.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201401281109.html

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Forum stresses women role in agriculture

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Food security is within reach and that “Africa can and should feed Africa”, said Mr. Carlos Lopes, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

He made the remark at the 23rd consultative meeting in the African Union on the theme Empowering Women for Agriculture and Food Security that commenced in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on January 23, 2014.

“The Continent needs bold policies and critical targeted investments to transform its agriculture and that such policies should highlight gender inequality and discrimination against women in the whole agricultural value chain,”  he said.

“While Africa is experiencing exceptional growth rates, the growth registered is short of the 7 per cent needed to tackle poverty and put the continent on a more sustainable and predictable path,” he said. He noted that trade is still driven by the exports of raw materials and that not adding value to our vast natural and mineral resources results in the failure to retain the wealth and jobs this richness allows. This, stressed the ECA Executive Secretary, must change.

He said that the Continent needs to embark on an ambitious, yet feasible industrialization and that its numerous resources, such as arable land should also provide impetus for a commodity-based industrialization. He cautioned, however, that transforming agriculture and industrializing would not automatically lead to the empowerment of women.

“Evidence, including in Africa, has shown that industrialization can exacerbate gender gaps rather than narrowing them,” he said and explained that the shift of labour and resources from the agricultural sector to the industrial and services sectors “can worsen gender gaps because women who used to evolve in traditional agricultural often are not equipped to compete with men in the industrial and services sectors.”

“Consequently, women tend to concentrate on low paid jobs with worse working conditions,” he noted.

Mr. Lopes called for the recognition and valuing of women’s contribution and underscored that their “constraints, options, incentives and needs should be assessed, and factored in the transformation agenda.”

“For too long women’s role and contribution were unvalued and invisible. Time has come for dramatic change in believes and attitudes. We have the right to ask for it and African leaders should be enlisted for this change,” he stressed.

He called for a thorough review of the legal systems to remove all types of discrimination against women and underscored the need to adopt “effective mechanisms to monitoring the full implementation of the gender responsive laws.”  He said that laws and policies on women’s agricultural land and property rights are not implemented in isolation from other socioeconomic policy issues.

He told the conference that ECA’s African Centre for Gender will soon be launching a new continent-wide initiative aimed at putting focus on what he described as “the key ingredients for a successful integration of African women into the mainstream policy discussion.” The initiative, said Mr. Lopes, will comprise three pillars: women’s economic empowerment, rights, and social protection and security. The pillar on women’s economic empowerment will focus on the agricultural and extractive sector.

The new initiative stems from the viewpoint that women’s socio-economic and political empowerment is the foundation and the condition sine qua non for Africa’s structural transformation.

http://newbusinessethiopia.com/index.php/buss/99-agribusiness/614-forum-stresses-women-role-in-agriculture

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Israeli company to manufacture solution for road construction

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An Israeli company that supplies a chemical for road construction announced plans to make the product in Ethiopia.

Zeev Halber, CEO of AnyWay Solid Environmental Solution (AnyWay), says that they were previously importing the inputs needed to make the chemical in Ethiopia but since they want to greatly expand the number of road projects they are involved in with here, they will begin, not only manufacturing the product here, but also exporting it to other countries.
The road construction solution has been a big seller for AnyWay as they have clients all over the world.
It was introduced into Ethiopia about seven years ago when the company undertook a project.
“The more we develop our business here in Ethiopia and the more projects we take on, the more we realize the need to produce the chemical locally. It is good for us and our customers because we will have a reasonable price for any projects as we will produce the chemical solution here,” Halber told Capital.
Issues with the process of importing the solution including customs procedures were factors in the company’s decision to set up the plant.
“Before the end of this year we will start the production in Ethiopia,” the CEO said.
Right now AnyWay is conducting assessments to see what raw materials are available and what area would be the best place to locate the plant.
Local partners that work with the company say that Ethiopia has put into place incentives for the manufacturing sector that mainly focus on substituting imported material and AnyWay also wanted to take advantage of this.
“We plan to make almost everything we need using raw materials from Ethiopia, there are only a few items we may have to import,” Halber said.
Since 2008 the company has worked on several roads in Addis Ababa but now they are getting a lot more requests for other projects and many companies also want to use the products AnyWay uses for their own projects.
“We are in the process of working with international and other private companies,” the CEO said.
Materials made by AnyWay are used in many different types of construction including; roads, airports, railways, oil, mines and housing. In fact technology developed by AnyWay can allow local, poor quality soil to be used as the primary building material for homes. This type of construction, known as stabilized earth block construction is considered to be an innovative way to build low cost housing.
The CEO said that the company has also started discussions with Amhara Regional State and Southern Nations, nationalities and People’s Regional State to implement the solutions in various projects.
“In Amhara we are using technology and techniques to create low cost housing using soil stabilization and earth blocks,” he said. “The solution we make can even stabilize the low quality black cotton soil.”
Soil stabilization allows projects to be finished quickly and economically by converting poor quality soil into an impermeable layer. This permits roads to be paved in places where it was previously not economically viable.
Research conducted by Addis Ababa City Roads Authority (AACRA) and Addis Ababa University confirmed the effectiveness of this method in treating black cotton soils. This has allowed this kind of soil to be successfully incorporated into road pavement structures through stabilization technique. It will eliminate the need to remove and dump the black cotton soil and replacing it with quarried materials.
Zerihun Yifru (Eng.), head of road construction sub process at AACRA, told Capital that using this solution in road construction reduces the cost and effort to construct a road by around 30 percent.
“The time for constructing a road through this technology will reduce the time by about 30 percent,” he said.
After their success with a pilot project, Zerihun said the Authority awarded them several more projects including some major linkages like the new endeavor that leads from Bole Health Center to Shalla Public Park to the road that links Axum Hotel with Bole High School.
Samson Bekure (Eng.) is the Managing Director of Saba Engineering which is a local partner of AnyWay, he said that they want to work with the Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA). They have submitted a proposal to the authority to have their products tested by ERA in hopes that they can work together on many more of the nation’s road projects.
AnyWay, whose products were previously tested by AACRA, has also been talking with private developers and horticulture companies in hopes that they can help meet their road construction needs as well.
“We don’t come with magic, we come with engineering solutions this is what is gaining the recognition,” the CEO explained.
Last week the company organized a workshop that included the private sector, representatives from federal and regional offices and public enterprises. The workshop also went over legal procurement guidelines to show ways that companies in the public sector can work out a contract with companies like AnyWay.
Procurement guidelines have been considered as a major barrier previously for public institutions wanting to work with AnyWay. The presentation demonstrated ways that state institutions can take advantage of procurement guidelines and proclamations to take advantage of the new technology.

http://www.capitalethiopia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3963:israeli-company-to-manufacture-solution-for-road-construction&catid=35:capital&Itemid=27

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International companies eye Ethiopia’s textiles

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Large international corporations are becoming more interested in investing in Ethiopia as the likes of H&M and TESCO have started to establish their presence in the country. “TESCO opened its office in Ethiopia very recently and when companies like that start getting involved, others will follow. That is what we are seeing now,” said Melaku Taye, Ministry of Industry PR office head.

Currently TESCO is reportedly buying products from five textile companies and it plans to buy GBP 15 million worth of merchandize with in the coming two years. TESCO is a British multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, England. It is the second-largest retailer in the world next to Wal-Mart when measured by profits.

“These big companies did not just decide to open offices and get involved in the industry; it took them over three years of study to determine if the market was viable and if it would be profitable for them,” Melaku said. During a meeting regarding the textile and leather sector, held at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, speakers reported that currently there are 60 garment factories and 15 textile mills in Ethiopia.

Presenters at the conference also pointed out that in order for the government to achieve it’s ambitious plan to get $1 billion USD from textile and $500 million USD from the leather sector, it would require a collaborative effort with all stakeholders including the public, along with private and development partners. According to Tadesse Haile, State Minister of Industry, there are some challenges to the industry sector including the lack of raw materials, high taxations on machineries and affordable human power, which hampers the sector’s growth. The meeting was attended by the U.K Ambassador Greg Dory, DFID representative Melanie Robinson, TESCO Ethical Trading Director Giles Bolton and TESCO representative in Africa Lumat Ahmed along with representatives of companies involved in the textile and leather sector.

Much attention has been given to manufacturing lately because as experts at the meeting stated the exports from the sector bring in foreign currency and create many opportunities such as bringing in technological transfer and building local managerial skills. The need for investment not to only focus in and around Addis Ababa was also talked about  during the discussions. In order to have balanced growth in the country, investment should also go towards various regions which are equally suitable.

http://www.capitalethiopia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3966:international-companies-eye-ethiopias-textiles&catid=35:capital&Itemid=27

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Ethiopia’s  economic growth to slow down slightly

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Growth in Africa’s non-oil and non-mineral-rich economies is forecast to moderate slightly from 4.7 per cent in 2013 to 4.6 per cent in 2014, mostly driven by strong expansion in services and agriculture in countries such as Ethiopia, reads the World Economic Situation and Prospects 2014 report released by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
The report notes that Africa’s economic growth prospects remain relatively robust and should continue to increase. Growth in the East African region specifically is expected to increase from 6.0 percent in 2013 to 6.4 percent in 2014.
Ethiopia’s GDP growth is anticipated to slow down in 2014 to 6.5 percent when compared to 6.9 percent in 2013. Inflation is expected to go up slightly during the current year to 9.5 percent from 9.1 percent in 2013.
Africa’s growth is heavily driven by commodity production and export. However, economic growth on the continent continues to fail translating to job opportunities.
According to the report, real GDP growth in East Africa will benefit from several positive factors including, increased consumer spending in Kenya, increased consumption and investment in Tanzania’s  natural gas sector and increased activity in construction, transport, telecommunications, financial services, exploration and construction in  Uganda’s burgeoning oil industry.
Improved growth in agriculture and services spearheaded by the wholesale and retail trade sector’s improving performance in Ethiopia is also boosting the East African economic outlook.
Africa’s total export is foreseen to decline this year to 29.6 percent of GDP from 30.9 percent in 2013. This will occur mainly due to the weakening global commodity markets. On a sub-regional level exports are expected to decline, except in East Africa where exports should slightly increase from 15.5 percent of the GDP in 2013 to 15.7 percent this year.
The increase is said to be attributed to the rise in nontraditional exports such as floriculture and services. This is especially true in the case of Ethiopia, Kenya and the United Republic of Tanzania, the report points out.
Total imports are also to see a slow down across all sub-regions. The largest decline, according to the report, is to occur in South Africa from 29.5 percent of the GDP in 2013 to 27.3 percent in 2014.
Regarding the world economy, it is stated that it has reached only subdued growth of 2.1 percent in 2013.
While most developed economies continued to grapple with the challenge of taking appropriate fiscal and monetary policy actions in the aftermath of the financial crisis, a number of emerging economies, which had already experienced a notable slowdown in the past two years, encountered new domestic and international headwinds during 2013, the report reads.
On the brighter side, the report says the euro area has finally come out of recession with the region’s GDP as a whole starting to grow again.
The economy in the United States is also continuing to  recover; and a few large emerging economies, including China, seem to have at least stopped their further slowdown and may see accelerating growth.

http://www.capitalethiopia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3965:ethiopias-economic-growth-to-slow-down-slightly-&catid=35:capital&Itemid=27

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Council designs project on agriculture marketing

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The Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce said it has designed and is putting into action a three year agriculture marketing project to support making agriculture products more market centered.
Ethiopia has finished a Five Year Sustainable Land Handling Project, that targets the nation’s farmers and should modernize and expand the agriculture sector, successfully and heading for the second round.
However, says a Senior Adviser to the Agribusiness Facility Project with the Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce Dr. Zerihun Desalegn ,work has not been  done up to the expectations. The Chamber is striving to help the farming business, he said.
He said the chamber has been offered 70 million Birr from the government of Netherlands to focus on profitable agriculture activities.
The Three-Year Agribusiness Project is expected to create job opportunities for micro and small enterprises, graduating students and experts in the field.
In addition, Dr. Zerihun said activities are underway to modernize information networks in farming.  (Fana Broadcasting)

http://www.capitalethiopia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3984&catid=45&Itemid=37

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Financial sector now subject to ethics probes

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Private financial Institutions, endowments and share companies will be the main focus area of investigation by the Federal Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission (FEACC) in a new regulation that is awaiting approval from the Prime Minister to be referred to the House of Peoples’ Representatives.
The draft proclamation will focus on organizations that manage public money, such as share companies, and will bestow the commission full access to investigate and charge private businesses that are suspected of fraudulent activities.
According to the information from FEACC, the draft proclamation will not only tackle corruption cases occurring in private companies or institutions but it is also expected to deal with the setbacks observed in the implementation of the existing proclamation.
The anti-corruption law issued a decade ago did not allow FEACC to handle corruption crimes committed by the private sector. It was limited to fighting corruption occurring in governmental organisations.
Sources told Capital that the draft proclamation is currently being reviewed by the Office of the Prime Minister. The draft will then be referred to the Council of Ministers and then will go to the House of Peoples’ representatives. FEACC also hopes that the draft proclamation will be ratified by the parliament in the current budget year.
According to the draft regulation, business enterprises managing finances mobilised from the public, as well as share companies involved in manufacturing, agriculture, trade, construction, transport, finance and others will also be investigated. Financial institutions even those that are not formed through share companies, professional associations, federations, confederations, cooperatives, unions, development associations, non-governmental organizations and nongovernmental associations (endowments and foundations) will also be included by the new law.
International organizations, political parties, religious institutions, small scale institutions, ‘ekub’ and ‘Idir’ associations that are believed to managed public assets that will not be affected by the law.

http://www.capitalethiopia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3974:financial-sector-now-subject-to-ethics-probes&catid=54:news&Itemid=27

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French fertiliser manufacturer targets commercial farmers in East Africa

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More than 400,000 people in the oil rich Turkana region are facing starvation as Kenya battles with yet another bout of food shortages. Over-dependence on rain-fed agriculture and poor farming and storage methods are partly to blame for the nation’s food security challenges.

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Wamae Mwangi, country director of Timac Agro

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A recent joint report by FAO and Kenya’s Agriculture Ministry revealed that continuous use of fertilisers such as DAP (Diammonium phosphate) has resulted in reduced soil pH and declining productivity.

Kenya relies on imported fertilisers and farmers often complain of shortages and delays in arrival which affect their yields.

French fertiliser manufacturer Roullier Group has opened a regional office in Nairobi to tap into the market as scientists and farmers shift attention to alternative fertilisers. Timac Agro Kenya, a subsidiary of Roullier, set up shop in Nairobi late last year and is set to begin selling its premium fertiliser brands in March.

Wamae Mwangi, country director of Timac Agro, said Kenya offers a big opportunity for Roullier.

“Kenya is one of the largest fertiliser markets in Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya is number two [in fertiliser consumption] after South Arica. In terms of overall tonnage, Kenya is doing over 500,000 metric tons of fertiliser [annually]… it is a big market.”

Roullier Group, one of the largest suppliers of fertiliser in the world, began operations in Africa towards the end of 2013 and opened offices in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire.

“Before the war, Ivory Coast was one of the jewels of West Africa. They are now restructuring, it has a very well educated population, very good infrastructure in place and, of course, with the dividends of peace, it’s easy to pick up in Ivory Coast. If you are not in Ivory Coast, you are not in West Africa.”

Timac Agro will sell a range of products including its Duopac brand for cereals such as barley, wheat and sorghum, as well as Locastart for short-term crops like maize, vegetables, potatoes and beans.

Acidic soil

“We have brought in what we call specificity fertilisers from Europe. We have added a patented molecule to our product which prevents the problem of acidification… and to avail phosphorous to the plant.”

According to Mwangi, the soils in Kenya are mostly acidic and to be productive the pH levels need to be raised. He argues that the use of DAP, which is an acidifying fertiliser, is like adding “fuel to fire”. The acidification prevents absorption of phosphorous which is essential for root development.

“The soils are sick. It is not over use [of fertilisers]. Countries like China, Korea are doing 200kgs per acre while we only at 33kgs. Our usage is very minimal. The problem is we are using the wrong fertiliser.”

Timac Agro will start with targeting commercial farmers in high productivity areas in Kenya whose purchasing power for premium products is higher.

Mwangi says Timac Agro’s fertilisers will cost about 50% more than other fertiliser brands which sell at about KSh 2,450 (US$28) for a 50kg bag. However, he adds, the rate of usage of Timac Agro’s fertilisers could be 50% less and farmers will record substantial increase in their yields.

“A commercial farmer will understand the cost benefit analysis,” says Mwangi, adding that he expects the “price factor” to be a challenge initially because fertilisers imported by the government are highly subsidised.

An uphill task for Timac Agro is building confidence among farmers who have seen wonder products enter the market which failed to live up to their promises.

Timac Agro has recently hired a team that will be deployed across the country to train farmers, and is also partnering with recognised research institutions in the country. The firm’s products are being tested by the Coffee Research Foundation, The Tea Research Foundation, Sugar Research Institute and Kenya Agricultural Research Institute.

Addressing a need

Mwangi did not disclose how many tons of fertiliser Timac Agro will be shipping this year but said the firm is targeting 1% of the Kenyan fertiliser market. Kenya imports 500,000 metric tons of fertiliser annually.

“Within the fifth year, I expect this figure to have grown to 7.5%,” says Mwangi. “We expect a wait-and-see attitude at first. People need to be confident in us. Our short term plan is to educate farmers on what the real problem is… and get farmers to address that problem… and heal our soils. We are not coming with a mindset of sell, sell and sell. We are here to address a problem.”

Agribusiness, Mwangi explains, is a crucial sector as the world’s population increases. Farmers who adopt improved and modern farming techniques stand to make huge financial gains as demand for food rises.

“I will tell you of two sectors you need to invest in. If you are not in energy, you have to be in agriculture. That is the future of the world,” says Mwangi. “The global population by 2020 will be about 8bn. People will always eat. So, at any given day, someone has to be producing food for this population. It’s guaranteed business.”

Mwangi says Africa’s food security challenges will be solved as stakeholders adopt innovation. Organic farming, he adds, has its benefits but is not the best fit for Africa today.

“You cannot produce without fertiliser. Organic farming is for the rich. You can never sustain a country with organic farming. Organic farming is after quality, not quantity. What we need in Africa is quantity.”

http://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/french-fertiliser-manufacturer-targets-commercial-farmers-in-east-africa/34651/

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Thinking outside the box: an innovative solution for Africa’s infrastructure woes

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African countries should deploy their militaries to building infrastructure on the continent, said Professor Calestous Juma, director of science, technology and globalisation at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Calestous Juma speaking at last week’s World Economic Forum on Africa, held in Cape Town.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum on Africa, Juma suggested that African defence forces should become development armies.

This, he noted, will help the continent develop infrastructure projects faster.

“The biggest threat to Africa is not invasion by neighbours; it is poverty. I am interested in seeing the extent to which defence ministries can participate in expanding road networks in Africa,” said Juma.

It is estimated that Africa will need about US$93 billion every year for the next 45 years to develop the needed infrastructure. Many African countries are starting to increase their infrastructure investment with some allocating up to 10% of the GDP to infrastructure projects. This is however, not enough.

Poor transport, communications and energy infrastructure is slowing down Africa’s economic development and has hampered the growth of various sectors like agriculture.

“African governments need to be creative about how they leverage domestic resources to support infrastructure investments. I would like to see large sections of the African military devoted to infrastructure projects. Most of these militaries have some of the best engineers and equipment,” said Juma.

According to Juma, Senegal has a very long established tradition of the military helping to build infrastructure, while large sections of the armies in Eritrea and Ghana are also engaged in development activities. In Uganda, a defunct college has been revived and converted into the University of Military Science and Technology managed by the Uganda People’s Defence Force. The university has already started graduating railway engineers.

African countries, he added, need to take a step further and develop public policy interventions on military involvement in development, to leverage the assets the continent already has.

“This should be done by policy, not by accident,” he explained. “We allocate large portions of our budget to defence; to me the first defence is economic defence.”

According to Juma, Africa’s fascination with China is based on the ability of Chinese companies to build infrastructure quickly. Although China is building a lot of the infrastructure on the continent, African countries need to build the capacity needed to maintain the infrastructure.

“African countries must be thinking seriously about building capacity in engineering on a large scale. Line ministries should build their own engineering schools. For instance, the ministry of water should build a water engineering school. This is how China built up its engineering capabilities,” he said.

African universities, Juma said, should also equip the next generation with skills to solve practical problems, particularly, in engineering sciences and entrepreneurial activities.

http://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/?p=26433

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Also:

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-     27 January 2014 News Round Up

-     25 January 2014 Development News Briefs

-     23 January 2014 News Roll

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Ambassador Berhane meets the Parliamentary Secretary of Foreign Ministry of Canada

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State Minister Ambassador Berhane met on Monday (January 27) with Mr. Deepak Obhrai, Parliamentary Secretary of the Foreign Ministry of Canada.

Their discussions focused on strengthening the bilateral relations between Ethiopia and Canada.

Mr. Obhrai said he appreciated the growing relationship between the two countries and was looking for additional ways to expand the relationship. He mentioned Canada’s interest in signing a Foreign Investment Protection Agreement with Ethiopia.

Ambassador Berhane said Ethiopia valued its relations with Canada and appreciated Canada’s role in assisting the peace efforts in the region. He described the political relations between the two countries as excellent but suggested economic ties could be improved.

He pointed out that that Africa was set to become the next growth pole of the world economy and Ethiopia was one of the countries on the continent registering fastest economic growth. He urged Canadian companies to do more business in Ethiopia.

Ambassador Berhane welcomed Canadian interest in a Foreign Investment Protection Agreement but he also requested the Canadian government to sign a more comprehensive business agreement that included avoidance of double taxation as well as trade and tourism agreements.

He asked for an increase in the number of flights for Ethiopian Airlines to Canada, pointing out that it was the only African airline to fly there. He said an increase in flights would provide the opportunity to increase economic ties between the two countries.

Ambassador Berhane also briefed Mr. Obhrai on Ethiopia’s efforts to encourage lasting peace and security in the region, in Somalia, between Sudan and South Sudan and in South Sudan itself.

http://www.mfa.gov.et/news/more.php?newsid=2952.

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Dr. Tedros meets the head of General Electric International

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Dr. Tedros met Mr. Jeff Immelt, the Chief Executive of General Electric International Inc. on Monday (January 27).

Dr. Tedros detailed the Government`s aims to transform Ethiopia into an economy which has a modern and productive agricultural sector with enhanced technology and an industrial sector with a leading role in the economy. He explained successful combination of leadership, right policies, and focus on human resources development as demonstrated in the Growth and Transformation Plan.

He also noted the investment opportunities available in Ethiopia, in energy, including hydro, wind, solar and geothermal power, in infrastructure, agriculture, education and in manufacturing sectors. He also encouraged GEI to work together with Ethiopian Airlines to reach out across Africa.

General Electric International is a global leader in providing technology and services to power, rail, healthcare and infrastructure sectors, and has the expertise and capacity to facilitate engagement by private sector investors in infrastructure projects across the world.

Mr. Immelt said he appreciated the Government’s commitment and the environment for investment in Ethiopia. He said training services and manufacturing of equipment for maternal care would proceed as scheduled, and he expressed interest in expanding GEC’s activities and investments in Ethiopia.

During his visit, Mr. Immelt also held discussions with Prime Minster Hailemariam and with Dr.  Kesteberhane, Minister of Health. He said an MOU would be signed with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development to provide a framework for successful collaboration between the Government, GEC and relevant stakeholders from the public and private sectors, to scope and develop viable and sustainable projects in key sectors of the economy.

http://www.mfa.gov.et/news/more.php?newsid=2961

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Dr. Tedros meets UK’s Minister for Africa

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Foreign Minister Dr. Tedros Adhanom held discussion on Tuesday with UK’s minister for Africa, Mark Simmonds.

Ministry endeavoring to attain GTP in energy sector

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The Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy said it is exerting maximum efforts to achieve the target set in the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) in the energy sector.
The five-year GTP, which will be concluded by 2015, eyes increasing the electricity generation capacity of the country to 10, 000 MW and its coverage to 75 per cent.
Wide-ranging activities have been carried out during the past three years of the GTP period to generate electricity from various sources and efforts are going on to attain the target within the remaining GTP period.
“The ministry is working day and night to raise nation’s power generation capacity to 10,000MW by 2015 from 2,268 MW now,” Water, Irrigation and Energy Minister Alemayehu Tegenu told WIC recently.
“The overall energy coverage of the country is also expected to reach 75 per cent by 2015 from the present 54 per cent,” he said.
In order to attain the plan set in the GTP, power projects with 8,500 MW power generation capacity are being executed in various parts of the country, the minister said.
According to him, the country has a plan to produce 8,123MW electricity from water, some 153MW from wind, 300MW from solar and 50MW from garbage which, all of them are under implementation.
In addition to the execution of power projects, the ministry has launched solar systems project, which will be used to power 25,000 homes in rural areas of the country.
Since the launch of the project, 23,000 solar systems have been installed, thus benefiting several households, he said.
Moreover, the country has set a plan to build 14, 000 biogas technology plants within the GTP period, out of which 3,500 biogas are being built every year, he said.
The country has also managed to save 100MW on daily bases through distributing power saving bulbs to households, Alemayhu Added.
Ethiopia has exploitable power potential of 45,000 MW from water; 1.3 million MW from wind, and over 7,000 MW from geothermal energy, it was learnt.

http://www.waltainfo.com/index.php/explore/12128-ministry-endeavoring-to-attain-gtp-in-energy-sector

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Italferr to support Ethiopian railway projects

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ETHIOPIAN Railways Corporation (ERC) has appointed Italferr, the engineering subsidiary of Italian State Railways (FS), to provide consultancy services for maintenance and operations on the new 656km Addis Ababa standard-gauge line and the Addis Ababa light rail network, which are both being built by China Railway Engineering Company (CREC)

The €1.23m contract was signed at the head offices of ERC in Addis Ababa on January 28.

Ethiopia, Algeria sign cooperation agreements

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The Third Ethiopia Algeria Joint Ministerial Committee Meeting was held at the weekend with the respective delegations led by Dr. Tedros Adhanom, Foreign Minister of Ethiopia and Mr. Ramtane Lamamra, Foreign Minister of Algeria.

Bureau creates jobs for over 173,000 compatriots

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The Amhara Regional State Technical and Vocational Enterprises Development Bureau said it has created jobs for more than 173,000 compatriots during the past six months.
Bureau Public Relations Head, Zelalem Niguse, told WIC hat some 92, 478 of the jobs created in the past six months are permanent jobs. The remaining 80, 586 jobs are temporary.
In order to alleviate site problems of the enterprises, some 278 sheds built by the state are being distributed among beneficiaries, he said.
All beneficiaries of the job opportunities have received short term training, according to Zelalem.

http://www.waltainfo.com/index.php/explore/12130-bureau-creates-jobs-for-over-173000-compatriots-

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Administration set to expand urban agriculture

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A plan that enables to expand urban agriculture in Addis Ababa City Administration was prepared, according to Trade and Industry Development Bureau of the Administration.
Bureau Urban Agriculture Process Leader, Alemayehu Taye, told WIC recently that the plan would help expand urban farming in all ten sub-cities of the administration.
The plan, expected to involve 11,000 people drawn from 116 Woredas will be realized over the coming six months, Alemayehu said.
In order to attain the plan, training of trainers (ToT) was given for over 900 health extension workers deploy in the metropolis and other 442   executives, he said.
During the past six months, agricultural inputs and counseling service were also given to over 24,000 people engaged in fruits, vegetable and crop development as well as animal rearing, he added.
With a view to expanding urban agriculture in the city, the Addis Ababa City Cabinet approved urban farming policy and strategy last Ethiopian budget year, it was learnt.

http://www.waltainfo.com/index.php/explore/12129-administration-set-to-expand-urban-agriculture-

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Prime Minister Hailemariam holds talks with the Foreign Minister of Denmark

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The Prime Minister met with the Foreign Minister of Denmark, Mr. Holger K. Nielsen on Tuesday (January 28).

Mr. Nielsen is a member of the Folketing for the Socialist People’s Party and before being appoint Minister of Foreign Affairs in December was Minister for Taxation. Discussions focused on bilateral affairs and regional issues.

The Prime Minister explained Ethiopia’s aims to transform Ethiopia into an economy with a modern and productive agricultural sector with enhanced technology and an industrial sector in order to sustain economic development to achieve the goal of reaching a middle-income country. He detailed the investment opportunities available in energy, infrastructure, agriculture and agricultural processing, education, tourism and manufacturing. He underlined the importance of investment for Ethiopia and urged the Danish government to encourage investors.

Mr. Nielsen said he appreciated Ethiopia’s achievements in sustainable growth and said his government was ready to continue its support. He said it would provide special focus on encouraging more Danish investment and especially to help Ethiopia’s declared goal of a green growth strategy to which Denmark also subscribes.

Prime Minister Hailemariam also explained Ethiopia efforts to achieve peace and stability in Somalia and South Sudan. He pointed out that there was real hope that things would continue to improve in Somalia, but there was a need to continue with the fight against Al-Shabaab and it was important that the regional countries together with the international community should prevent any backsliding and that support continue to be given to bolster the Somali national defense forces.

On South Sudan, the Prime Minister said it was important to impress both sides with the need to seriously deal with the issues for the sake of all the people of the country. He said the involvement of neighboring countries was not helpful.

http://www.mfa.gov.et/news/more.php?newsid=2963

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Prime Minister Hailemariam opens the Ethiopia-Finland Business Forum 

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An Ethiopia-Finland Business Forum was held on Tuesday (January 28) with the aim to identify and promote new investment, trade and business opportunities between the two countries.

The forum was attended by Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Finland, Jyrki Katainen, high-level officials, and leading business representatives from both countries.

At the opening session, Prime Minister Hailemariam emphasized that mutual respect and mutual help were the pillars of bilateral relations of the two countries, stressing that all Finnish private and public companies would be welcome to invest in the opportunities that existed in Ethiopia. He noted in particular the possibilities available in areas of trade, investment, agro-processing, green renewable energy, infrastructure, and mining.

Finnish Prime Minister Katainen pointed out that the Forum would offer an opportunity to exchange views to accelerate and expand business and trade relations of the two countries. The representatives of participating companies then met in two sectoral workshops, one on energy and infrastructure, the other covering agriculture, land and forest.

There was agreement that the Forum was an important development for the relationship between the two countries and for the possible partnerships between Finnish and Ethiopian companies to allow a fast-track for business, trade, and investment cooperation.

http://www.mfa.gov.et/news/more.php?newsid=2953

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Amb. Berhane met with Sweden’s State Secretary

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State Minister, Ambassador Berhane Gebre-Christos met with Ms. Tanja Rassmusson, Sweden’s State Secretary for International Cooperation and Development on Tuesday.

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Africa and India are gearing up to further enhance cooperation in agricultural science, technology and innovation, and move beyond dialogue to a range of practical options from a virtual biotech platform to agribusiness centres, seed investments and even joint donor-aided projects.

Willy Tonui, chief executive officer of Kenya’s National Biosafety Authority, said that studying how India has resolved development problems could help overcome similar challenges across Africa.

“India has developed solutions to its unique environmental and cultural challenges. We could learn from it,” he told SciDev.Net at a meeting on science, technology and innovation cooperation between Africa and India in New Delhi last October.

The meeting, which included ministers, heads of biotechnology organsiations, seed industry representatives, officials and scientists, generated a slew of proposals to enhance agricultural collaboration. The ideas from the meeting will feed into a larger Africa-India summit slated for 2014 in Delhi.

S. R. Rao, an advisor to the Department of Biotechnology in India’s Ministry of Science and Technology, suggested creating an Indo-African, open-access biotechnology virtual platform that would offer a roster of experts and enable knowledge to be shared on a range of techniques and biotech-related sectors such as fisheries, horticulture and animal health.

Some other proposals that emerged from the meeting were to set up agribusiness centres to promote entrepreneurship and provide services, and to form joint agricultural projects to boost the chances of getting donor funding.

Diran Makinde, director of the African Biosafety Network of Expertise, which was set up to help the continent’s regulators make decisions on biotechnology products, told SciDev.Net that Africa would benefit from cooperation with India in several fields. These include: developing technological and professional competence; upgrading technology infrastructure; stimulating collaborative innovation and entrepreneurship; and providing an enabling science, technology and innovation environment.

Similar farming systems

As a partner, India is “handy because of the similarities in our farming systems”, Makinde said, referring to the smallholdings typical of both African and Indian agriculture.

Another useful insight for Africa is to learn how India has boosted the domestic production of seeds.

“Only about ten per cent of [African] farmers use hybrid seeds, which was the same in India some two decades ago, and this scenario may not enable us to achieve food and nutrition security in Africa, which is our top priority. In addition, there has been a lot of regulatory experience and data accumulated in India that may benefit African regulatory systems,” he told SciDev.Net.

The meeting in New Delhi was an offshoot of joint summits in 2008 and 2011. As a result of these, Africa and India are already implementing science and technology initiatives in: capacity building, development, and knowledge transfer and adoption in common priority research areas.

The initiatives cover: fellowships for African researchers to work in Indian science institutes; training African researchers in areas such as biomedical sciences, technological innovation, energy, environment and sustainable development; strengthening research institutes in Benin, Gabon and Tunisia; and the transfer and adoption of small- and medium-scale technologies.

Sachin Chaturvedi, a senior fellow at Research and Information Systems for Developing Countries, an Indian think-tank, tells SciDev.Net that various concrete proposals emerged from the meeting. These included agreement on setting up laboratory standards for seeds and other sources of genetic materials such as plant tissues; establishing seed incubator facilities for private-sector entrepreneurs in Africa; and building Africa’s capacity for seed research.

He says that India’s government has agreed, in principle, to fund agricultural cooperation, but the details must still be worked out.

Seeds challenge

A major challenge to African agricultural technology development is ensuring that seed production is of sufficient quality, and the availability and affordability of those seeds, says George Marechera, business development manager at the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, which promotes public-private partnerships to assist smallholder farmers in Sub Saharan Africa.

This is because most African seed production systems are still informal, farmer-based and low-yielding, he adds.

Despite the availability of several easily adaptable, high-quality, international seed production technologies – including improved techniques for seed selection, treatment and storage – there is a lack of coordination between producers, researchers and suppliers, Marechera says.

Similarly, there is no mechanism for linking these technologies with African seed companies that could roll them out.

Africa needs an innovative business model for seed access and delivery, Marechera says, adding that Africa and India could collaborate in seed production.

He suggests that India’s model of small seed companies, which require less investment, has potential in Africa.

Other joint efforts on seeds are under way. Africa and India are running trials under the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture’s India-Africa Seed Bridge project designed to link plant breeders with new seed production and distribution channels in emerging markets.

These include crops such as sorghum, millet, sunflower, tomato, onion and sesame, as well as maize that requires less water than traditional varieties, cowpea that is resistant to the pod borer moth, salt-tolerant rice and bananas that are resistant to the fungal ‘wilt’ disease.

And Bamidele Solomon, former director general of Nigeria’s National Biotechnology Development Agency, says biotechnologists from his country are meeting India’s agriculture ministry and seed company associations to build links with partners who could help Nigeria’s mission to grow genetically modified cotton, based on India’s success in the sector.

Nigeria and India could also increase collaboration in capacity building, technology transfer and the development of infrastructure such as modern laboratories in the agriculture sector, he says.

Links through international institutes

Several international research institutes are engaged in collaboration programmes between Africa and India. For example, the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute is engaged in programmes focusing on animal genetics, animal feeds and animal health that involve Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique and Tanzania as well as India.

“India-Africa knowledge management should move beyond the movement of messages to technology dissemination tools and approaches, and linkages to agricultural education,” says Purvi Mehta-Bhatt, the institute’s representative for South Asia.

The two partners should develop joint projects to attract donor funding, set up institutional collaboration and document, monitor and evaluate their experiences, she says.

Similarly, New Delhi-based The Energy and Resources Institute is running collaboration initiatives including policy dialogues, policy research knowledge sharing, institutional capacity building and grassroots demonstration projects on areas such as biotechnology and sustainable development.

And the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, whose headquarters is near Hyderabad, will use its Agribusiness and Innovation Platform initiative to help set up agribusiness incubators for farmers across Africa, along the lines of its networks of incubators in India.

BRICS build inroads into Africa

India’s engagement reflects the growing involvement by five of the major emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) – in agriculture across Africa.

“African agricultural policymakers are increasingly looking to the BRICS countries not only as investors and suppliers of technology, but also as sources of examples to be emulated, whether in large-scale commercial farming or in mass mobilisation to boost smallholder productivity,” notes a July 2013 bulletin by UK-based research organisations the International Institute for Environment and Development and the Institute of Development Studies.

The bulletin notes that the use of Brazilian technologies to improve soils and boost production is now seen by some as a model for Africa, and agricultural research collaborations between the two are growing. In addition, the bulletin says the continent is learning from China’s achievements in consolidating smallholder farms and developing large-scale mechanised farming.

Sourced here

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Relevant reads:

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-     Farm machinery and sustainable agriculture must evolve together

-     How three agribusinesses have improved their engagement with smallholders

-     Africa’s quiet agricultural revolution

-     African agriculture needs trade not aid

-     Input supply critical to enhancing agricultural productivity

-     Revitalizing agriculture in semi-arid areas-role of research

-     Pawe soybean research glimmering new hope for ensuring food security

-     Centre conducting research on over  200 crop varieties

-     Farmers fine-tune research, spread their own innovations

-     Overcoming productivity bottlenecks via research

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Africa needs agriculture to eradicate hunger & up sustainable food production

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Agriculture must become the engine for growth needed by Africa to eradicate hunger and boost sustainable food production, as stated at an event on the margins of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa by José Graziano da Silva, director general, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Stating that more than one out of every five Africans was still denied the right to food, he called on the region to step up its efforts, because it had the power to change the situation. He noted that a majority of the world’s ten fastest-growing economies were those of African nations.

”The challenge for Africa was to make economic growth more inclusive by targeting agricultural and rural development, women and young people,” da Silva said. About 75 per cent of Africans are 25 years old or younger, and the population is expected to remain largely rural for the next 35 years, with women heading many households.

“Agriculture is the only sector of the economy which is capable of absorbing this workforce,” the director general stated, adding that there was no inclusive and sustainable way forward for the world’s second-largest continent without women, youth and agriculture.

African Year of Agri & Food Security

Governments would have the opportunity to renew their support for agricultural development in 2014, which would be observed as the African Year of Agriculture and Food Security, which would be launched during the African Union Summit, slated to take place in the Ethiopian capital this week.

“The launch of the African Year of Agriculture and Food Security is a step towards a hunger-free and sustainable Africa that Nelson Mandela and many others dreamed of and fought for,” da Silva said, adding that it would build on the efforts of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), launched in 2003.

The African Year of Agriculture and Food Security is being observed parallel to the United Nations’ International Year of Family Farming. “For many years, and in many parts of the world, small-scale farmers, pastoralist families and fisherfolk were viewed as a part of the problem of hunger,” FAO’s director general said.

“That could not be further from the truth. Family farmers are already the main food producers in most countries, and they can do even more with the right kind of support,” he added. Improving access to financial services, training, mechanization and technology could transform subsistence farmers into efficient producers.

”Through methods that increase production and, at the same time, preserve natural resources, family farming would provide a sustainable alternative to input-intensive technologies that have resulted in damage to soil quality, land, water and biodiversity,” da Silva added.

2025 Zero Hunger target

Da Silva praised what he described as “the commitment, at the highest level, of an entire continent” to end hunger in Africa by 2025. The African Union Summit is due to adopt the target this week, in line with the Zero Hunger Challenge launched by United Nations’ secretary-general Ban Ki-moon in 2012.

http://www.fnbnews.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=34972&sectionid=1

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Ethiopia-India partnership need to fill  trade gap: Ambassador

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Ethiopia and India have long-standing relations in history, culture and people-to-people. Nowadays, the relationship has become more defined in trade, economic and development spheres. But, filling the gap in trade still requires more effort Indian Ambassador Sanjay Verma said.

In an exclusive interview with The Ethiopian Herald, Ambassador Verma said that India is among the top three or four trade partners with Ethiopia. “That is why, trade relations between the two countries reached approximately 1.2 billion USD.”

He also stated that enhancing the trade and economic elements of the relationship is vital which requires more investment in Ethiopia. Moreover, making sure that Ethiopia starts exporting to India because the trade gap is a lot that has to be corrected, the Ambassador added.

In the case of India, for instance, the import is greater than export. India, every year, imports much petroleum, which costs almost 120 billion USD. Thus, this affects the trade balance, he noted.

Likewise, Ethiopia is no different in this aspect and on essential commodities. Because, Ethiopia is a newly developing economy. When the nation start producing, the import substitution may happen, so that the gap offset reducing.

Pertaining to this, Ethiopia might benefit a lot from hydro-electric power, agricultural products, leather and food processing in employing these for import substitution which increasingly contributes immensely to the national economy. With regard to developmental partnership, the Ambassador noted that Indian investors invest almost 3 billion USD. Moreover, the Indian government assists development activities. Predominantly, it is active in providing scholarships, e-network, telemedicine, interlinked with Black Lion Hospital to deliver health services, among others. The cooperation area also includes the defence sector, leather and textile industry, he added.

http://www.ethpress.gov.et/herald/index.php/herald/news/5752-ethiopia-india-partnership-need-to-fill-trade-gap-ambassador

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Official says Ethiopia remains Italy’s strategic partner

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Italian Deputy Minister of Foreign AffairsLapo Pistelli

Italian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Lapo Pistelli who attended the 24th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the African Union said that Ethiopia remains strategic partner in dealing with regional, international affairs and his country is ready to broaden areas of cooperation.

In an exclusive interview with The Ethiopian Herald, Pistelli said: “It is clear that Italy and Ethiopia have longstanding bilateral relations. Addis Ababa is not only the capital city of one of the emerging new power of Africa but also a city where the AU is headquartered. Therefore, Ethiopia is playing significant dual role in bilateral partnerships and serving as a hub of multilateral diplomacy of the continent. Ethiopia is our priority country in terms of cooperation and aid policy. Italy provides largest packages of financial support to Ethiopia, Pistelli added.

According to him, Italy considers Ethiopia as the emerging player from the economic perspectives. “Numbers are not that much big in terms of trade volume between the two countries. Thus we are looking forward to re-launch the inter-trade between the two countries.”

In the next couples of weeks, the Deputy Minister of the Italian Economic Development would visit Ethiopia in order to promote areas of cooperation and accommodate new Italian companies to be engaged in the country’s development drive, Pistelli added.

The Deputy Minister underlined that Italy is having strategic cooperation with Ethiopia in regional and international issues. It is a key player in helping the international community to deal with regional crisis particularly in neighbouring countries, he said.

He further indicated that it is interesting that Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) has emerged as a multilateral fora to deal with regional crises. “There are some other big actors like United Nation (UN) and European Union (EU) in resolving conflicts. But through time, these organizations are aware of having regional mechanism to deal with crisis efficiently and effectively IGAD being used as proper mechanism to resolve crisis.”

In this regard, the Italian government is co-chairing the IGAD Partners Forum with Ethiopia giving Italy a role in convincing other actors how IGAD plays a relevant role in conflict resolution, he said.

Pistelli also noted that both countries see the world in different perspectives, but they believe that multilateral diplomacy is the best way to deal with complex crisis. “The cooperation shown by both countries at the IGAD Partners Forum held last September was indicative of the existence of closer bilateral ties between the two countries.”

The Deputy Minister underlined that Ethiopia and Italy also take the same stance that the crises in Somalia would be resolved sustainable manner only if countries help from a civilian government defeating Al-shabaab not only from military but political perspectives.

http://www.ethpress.gov.et/herald/index.php/herald/news/5741-official-says-ethiopia-remains-italy-s-strategic-partner

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AfDB adopts new gender strategy

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The Board of the African Development Bank Group last Thursday announced that it has approved its new Gender Strategy for the period 2014-2018

The new strategy provides “genuinely equal opportunity for men and women – in both their contribution to and their benefits from Africa’s economic transformation”.

“This represents a major milestone for the Bank, and it puts in place one of the critical foundations for realizing the ‘Africa at 50’ and ‘post-2015’ development agendas,” said Ms Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, the Bank’s newly appointed Special Envoy on Gender.

According to Fraser-Moleketi, what is new in the strategy is not just the recognition that “gender equality is a human right, but that development will not happen unless women are fully included in the process”.

The Bank said the gender strategy is closely aligned with its overarching 2013-2022 Strategy, and its core objective of promoting inclusive growth which will broaden the opportunities for both women and men.

The AfDB explains the strategy is built around three mutually reinforcing pillars which were identified as being key to addressing the underlying causes of gender inequalities in Africa. These are strengthening women’s legal and property rights; promoting women’s economic empowerment; and enhancing knowledge management and capacity building on gender equality.

http://www.ethpress.gov.et/herald/index.php/herald/news/5769-afdb-adopts-new-gender-strategy

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Ethiopia’s renewable energy revolution shouldn’t fail to empower its poor

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Large-scale clean energy projects shouldn’t eclipse the urgent need to provide electricity to low-income and rural communities

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Katie Auth in Washington, DC

Will Ethiopia’s renewable energy project light up poor communities? Photograph: Rebecca Blackwell/AP

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The 84 wind turbines erected just south of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia‘s capital, tower above an arid landscape of grassland and unpaved roads, inhabited mostly by small-scale farmers, who – along with 77% of population – lack access to electricity.

The Ashegoda wind farm, launched in November, will produce an estimated 400 GWh of electricity per year, and forms just one piece of the Ethiopian government’s strategy to harness indigenous energy resources for development. When – and to what extent – the country’s rural population will benefit depends on striking a balance between investing in new grid-connected generation and effective strategies for expanding access.

Ethiopia today stands at a crossroads. In 2012, it had the world’s 12th fastest growing economy (pdf). Unlike many industrialised nations, however, Ethiopia has made clear that renewable energy will be a key economic driver, emphasising green growth and clean energy as integral to growth and transformation plan (pdf), a five-year strategy to reduce poverty and spur national development. Recognising electricity as a vital enabler of economic growth and human development, the plan aims to minimise the gap between demand and supply, increase per capita consumption, and generate power for export. Specifically, it sets goals to increase hydropower capacity from 2000 MW to 10,000 MW, double the number of electricity customers, and raise the national electrification rate to 75%. Although its energy transformation has only just begun, two factors critical to Ethiopia’s early success are worth highlighting:

A diverse renewable energy portfolio

Diversification plays a critical role in reducing vulnerability, not only to supply disruptions and oil price hikes, but also to climate change.

Ethiopia is highly vulnerable to extreme weather variability, particularly erratic rainfall.  According to a World Bank study (pdf), climate change will likely increase the frequency of both flooding and droughts in Ethiopia, posing a significant challenge to agriculture, infrastructure, and hydropower generation. Although hydro provides cheap baseload power, over-dependence on the resource can make a country more vulnerable to drought conditions. Ethiopia has committed to developing wind and solar alongside its massive hydropower plants as guarantors against power shortages, especially during the dry season, while investments in geothermal and biofuels complement the intermittent resources.

Committed government partners

Through investment and policy reform, the Ethiopian government has played a crucial role in these early accomplishments. The country currently has the third highest public investment rate in the world (pdf), financed through a combination of restrained government spending and increased borrowing. Although Ethiopia generally struggles to attract investment, renewable project developers have recently noted the government’s willingness to facilitate co-operation.  Prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn has said that trade and investment have a most lasting impact than traditional aid. The government also ratified an energy proclamation  in November 2013 that has eased access for private investors. However, some have criticised the government’s lack of policy support mechanisms, which would provide developers with a more solid framework and financial guarantee.

Renewable energy in sub-Saharan Africa

Despite its recent successes, Ethiopia’s energy push has run up against several major challenges. The Grand Renaissance dam, for example, raises environmental, social, and geopolitical concerns. According to the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation, approximately 700 farmers lost some or all of their land during construction and development, and some claim government compensation was inadequate. Egypt, meanwhile, worries that the dam will curtail its own water supply, harming agricultural production and reducing electricity output from the Aswan dam – widely considered a symbol of Egyptian achievement.

The greatest challenge, however, will be to ensure that Ethiopia’s current focus on developing large-scale renewable generation projects does not eclipse the urgent need to expand electricity access in low-income and rural communities. Globally, energy access is considered crucial to reducing poverty and facilitating improvements in education, health, and economic productivity. Citing energy access as a prerequisite for achieving the millennium development goals, the United Nations has designed 2014-2024 the ‘Decade of sustainable energy for all‘.

Renewable energy development is gaining momentum throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Aside from hydro, however, much of the focus has been on technologies like small-scale solar for off-grid communities. In contrast, Ethiopia seems to indicate a potential shift towards utility-scale renewables. This large-scale approach – particularly when combined with Ethiopia’s focus on electricity for export – raises crucial questions about the future of electricity access. Even where people do have access, it can often be unaffordable or unreliable. A strategy that combines the kind of large-scale investment seen recently in Ethiopia with small-scale and distributed generation approaches – such as microgrids – could help ensure a more balanced result that will make Ethiopia a model for sustainable development.

Katie Auth is a research associate at Climate and Energy Worldwatch Institute. Follow @Worldwatch on Twitter

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/jan/30/ethiopia-renewable-energy-project

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Symposium discusses democratic developmental state concepts

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The Symposium brought together scholars, media management and practitioners,

opposition political party members as well as government officials

A day-long symposium on Democratic Developmental State and Mass Media Nexus organized by the Addis Ababa University (AAU) School of Journalism and Communication 2014 Post Graduate class yesterday discussed democratic developmental state concepts.

In his opening remark, AAU President Dr. Admasu Tsegaye said that the University, alongside with its regular duties, has been organizing various symposiums and public forum to discuss current national economic and political issues. It has also held various platforms to nurturing culture debate thereby reach at national consensus on various issues in the effort to assist in the democratization effort. The government and stakeholders as well as media houses are expected to play their due role in the effort to develop culture discussion, Dr. Admasu added.

What is more, the President said that a similar symposium was conducted on the Nile River in connection with the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. “We found that the symposium was very important to disseminate knowledge about Eastern Nile Basin and issues related to the dam. We are now trying to conduct a similar symposium in Khartoum March 8- 10, 2014 in collaboration with the Khartoum University.”

The core objective of the Khartoum symposium is to start working with Khartoum University on the Eastern Nile Basin. “We are planning to establish academic collaboration with the Universality to work on developmental issue of the Eastern Nile Basin,” Dr. Admasu said .

School of Journalism and Communication Head Dr. Abdissa Zerai told this reporter that the objective of the symposium is trying to see what is comparable and incomparable, to understand various perspectives of the diverse group of people coming from different biological tribes.

“We believe that universities are knowledge-generating institutions. It is one of the tasks of universities to look at very critically how the new concept of democratic development can actually meshes together. It is very important for us to go beyond the sloganeering. What are the problems and challenges in a country where we practice multiparty democracy,” Dr. Abdissa said.

In his presentation: ‘Freedom of the Press in the Environment of Democratic Development State’, Mushe Semu From the Ethiopian Democratic Party (EDP) said the previous press law relatively was good but the current one is very vague and very ambiguous. It violates the public the right to access to information.”

The Symposium, held at Intercontinental Hotel, brought together scholars, media management and practitioners, opposition political party members as well as government officials.

http://www.ethpress.gov.et/herald/index.php/herald/news/5767-symposium-discusses-democratic-developmental-state-concepts

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State Minister Ambassador Berhane meets the Vice Foreign Minister of Japan

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State Minister Ambassador Berhane Gebre-Christos met with Noro Mitsuiya, Vice Foreign Minister of Japan, on Thursday (January 30).

Ambassador Berhane welcomed the Vice Foreign Minister, recalling the recent successful official visit of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (January 13-14) to Ethiopia to enhance bilateral ties in areas of economic development, industrialization and institutional development and with the Japan’s private sector. Ethiopia, he said, was broadening and accelerating bilateral cooperation in all areas of common interest and concern.

Noro Mitsuiya underlined that Prime Minister Abe’s visit would encourage continuous development of the long-time Ethio-Japanese relationship. Japan, he said, attached great importance to Ethiopia’s efforts to safeguard peace and stability in the Horn of Africa.

Ambassador Berhane pointed out that Ethiopia was committed to help the two parties of the South Sudan resolve their problems for the wellbeing of their people and for the Horn in general.

http://www.mfa.gov.et/news/more.php?newsid=2970

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State Minister Ambassador Berhane Gebre-Christos meets with China’s Special Representative on UN Affairs

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State Minister Ambassador Berhane met with Yang Tao, China’s Special Representative on UN Affairs on Thursday (January 30).

The theme of their discussions focused on bilateral relations and regional issues. Ambassador Berhane emphasized that Ethiopia was dedicated to strengthen and deepen its strategic partnership and cooperation for the welfare of the peoples of the two countries. He stressed that Ethiopia would continue to play a major role in promoting and finding ways of dialogue, negotiation and cooperation to restore peace and reconciliation in South Sudan.  Yang Tao commended Ethiopia’s efforts to encourage the parties of South Sudan to resolve their problems.

He applauded the country’s commitment to strengthen and deepen bilateral ties and its comprehensive strategic partnership with China. He also pointed out that China would continue to boost its bilateral relations with Ethiopia in the future. He also said China would broaden its cooperation with Ethiopia on issues of solidarity, unity and climate change. Ambassador Berhane assured Yang Tao that Ethiopia was ready to join hands with China and other friendly nations to reduce the impact of climate change and to maintain the unity and solidarity of the two peoples, affirmed it would promote and speed up people-to-people relations in order to encourage the feelings of unity between them.

http://www.mfa.gov.et/news/more.php?newsid=2969

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State Minister Ambassador Berhane meets the Kazakhstan Ambassador

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On the margins of the 22nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union, State Minister Ambassador Berhane met the Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Egypt and Morocco, and Permanent Representative to the AU and ISESCO, Ambassador Berik Aryn.

The Kazakh Ambassador recalled the official visit of the Kazakhstan Foreign Minister to Ethiopia and noted this had been both successful and fruitful. Ambassador Berik highlighted the similarities between Kazakhstan and Ethiopia, especially their multiethnic composition. He indicated bilateral agreements were being prepared to cover political consultations, trade, investment, education and culture.

Ambassador Berhane welcomed the decision by Kazakhstan government to open an Embassy in Ethiopia and assured the Ambassador that Ethiopian government will give attention and support to its incoming personnel. State Minister Berhane emphasized Ethiopia’s wish to strengthen economic ties with Kazakhstan and pointed out that this decision came at a crucial time as Africa’s economic growth was advancing. He added that the opening of the Embassy would strengthen bilateral relations as well as provide greater access for other African governments.

http://www.mfa.gov.et/news/more.php?newsid=2971

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Ethiopia elected as member of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union

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The Executive Council of the African Union in its 24th ordinary session conducted the election of the 10 members of the Peace and Security Council (PSC).

Ethiopia and Tanzania are elected as members of the PSC for the next two years from the East Africa Region. Burundi, Chad from Central African Region, Guinea, Gambia, and Niger from West African region, Libya, from North Africa and South Africa and Namibia from Southern African Region are also elected.

49 member countries voted out of the 51 member countries since Egypt, Central Africa and Guinea-Bissau were not eligible to due to suspension of membership.

The PSC composed of 15 members of which five members are elected for a three year term while the 10 members are elected for five year term.

According to the Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the PSC, the criteria for election includes, contribution to the promotion and maintenance of peace and security in Africa in this respect, experience in peace support operations would be an added advantage; capacity and commitment to shoulder the responsibility the membership entails and participation in conflict resolution, peacemaking and peace building operations in Africa.

http://www.mfa.gov.et/news/more.php?newsid=2965

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Road construction: promising but sluggish

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The House of Peoples’ Representatives urged different bodies working on the road projects Thursday to run various activities keeping the required quality and the set time frame with a view to meeting the desired change in the country regarding the sector. As learned from the House, though a number of road projects are being carried out across the nation, the projects are suffering from lack of quality and not being readied for service at the intended time interval.

The very sluggish pace witnessed in due course of running road construction has, apart from incurring the public and the government huge cost, the roads get the public desperate enough. Here, the Ethiopian Roads Authority and the Ministry of Transport to which the former is accountable are expected to attach due emphasis to the issue. The road projects susceptible to a quite sluggish pace for instance include the Jimma—Bonga—Mizan—Humbo—Arba Minchi, those which are exposed to a serious lack of quality are also comprise Ginde-Woin—Mekane-Selam—Kombolcha—Shire-Endesellasie—Shiraro—Wukoro—Zalambessa. Worse even, the projects incorporating Ambo — Woliso—Muketuri—Alem Ketma—Hamusit—Estie—Debarq—Limalimo have not yet been started.

If the situation keeps at the same rate, it would be impossible to achieve the intended goals in the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) with respect to new road construction, up-grading and maintenance.

Non-accomplishment of road projects, problems of quality, time lag to commence planned road projects and failing to maintain old roads were questions, among others, from members of the house to the ministry.

According to the Ministry, efforts are being made to address the problems encountered related to weak performance of the contractors and other factors. In some cases, the topography of the road site and the society request to modify the original grades of the roads cause unexpected delays. It is also stated that currently, 224 road projects are underway of 140 are well in progress even beyond the plan while 20 projects are running with very slow pace that require stringent effort to bring to workable pace. True, more than 62 per cent of road has been accomplished over the past three and half years including upgrading, maintenance and new road construction while the rest will be done in the remaining one and half year to meet the GTP.

In fact, the topic of construction broadly encompasses the issues relevant to the process of road construction and maintenance, including the design, contracting, implementation, supervision, and maintenance of roads and related structures, such as bridges and interchanges. In many parts of the project sites, not only are cost high and quality low, it is common for suppliers of construction materials and services to have monopoly power, further increasing inefficiency and lowering quality. First, in these situations, it is a combination of transferring work from the public to the private sector and the introduction of competition into operations that is often the best way to decrease inefficiency and improve quality. Second, the contracting out of the works function requires the introduction of competition into the operation of road agencies themselves, either by the greater use of existing private contractors, or by allowing public sector agencies to compete with the private sector.

The road construction needs to be given due emphasis as it has been compromised many failed contractors coming up with poor planning, poor budgeting, and poor resource management. To overcome these problems, risks must be properly defined and the remedies associated with them spelled out in a way that eliminates the incentive of the contractor to bid other than at his best price.

There are options for creating an enabling environment for the road construction, thus leading to more involvement of private contractors and consultants in improved management of road assets. The process, which is of particular importance for economies in transition such as ours, begins with separating the functions of planning and management from implementation of road works. These methods not only help produce gravel roads of equal quality to those produced using equipment-based methods, but they also generate rural employment in a cost-effective manner.

Undeniably, proper road maintenance contributes to reliable transport at reduced cost, as there is a direct link between road condition and vehicle operating costs. On the contrary, an improperly maintained road can represent an increased safety hazard to the user, leading to more accidents, with their associated human and property costs. Generally, roads have significant impacts on both nearby communities and the natural environment.

In sum, it is important to note that keeping the quality of roads and completing them as per the schedule is of paramount importance in helping the nation meets its intended target particularly with regard to the road sector as well as helps the entire society to enjoy modern life wherever they travel.

http://www.ethpress.gov.et/herald/index.php/herald/editorial/5773-road-construction-promising-but-sluggish

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NEPAD accentuates African infrastructural development 

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Peer review mechanism session underway

Prime Minister Haile- Mariam Dessalegn said NEPAD has undoubtedly transformed the global debate about Africa by putting at front and centre the notion of the need for the continent to forge mutually beneficial partnership with the developed and emerging nations.

Addressing the 49th Meeting of NEPAD Steering Committee here yesterday, Prime Minister Haile-Mariam said the journey of the last decade has indeed been particularly rewarding for Africa though, obviously, a lot remains to be done.

“That is why we should continue to further enhance Africa’s collective endeavour to find ways and means to address the seemingly perennial economic, social and political challenges that our continent faces and do so in a manner that will ensure promoting the interest of our peoples,” he said.

The Premier said that assessments of impact and future of Africa’s partnership engagements with traditional partners as well as emerging ones should also be addressed.

“In doing so, it is important that we are mindful of the need to remain focused on making the best out of our partnership and the promotion of the interest of our continent,” Haile-Mariam said.

The Premier also said the need to bring on board newly emerging players whose partnership would go a long way in further solidifying the gains NEPAD has made possible for the continent cannot be overemphasized.

“While appraising and taking stock of the progress thus far made, we should also focus on unblocking policy legislative and regulatory challenges that are standing in the way of enhancing investment and infrastructure,” he said

According to the Premier, attention also needs to be paid to the issue of mobilizing domestic financial resources in the quest to realize ambitious infrastructural development goals.

Dr. Carlos Lopes UN Under Secretary–General and ECA Executive Secretary also said there is no need to emphasize infrastructure in Africa’s transformation agenda as this is now clearly accepted by all.

He noted that infrastructural development could enhance the ability of African countries to establish competitive industrial sectors and promote greater industrial linkages.

“There is also compelling evidence of the huge impact of road improvements of doubling of agricultural production in rural areas,” he added.

http://www.ethpress.gov.et/herald/index.php/herald/news/5740-nepad-accentuates-african-infrastructural-dev-t

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More news:

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-     29 January 2014 Development News Roll

-     28 January 2014 News Items

-     27 January 2014 News Round Up

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Filed under: Ag Related Tagged: Addis Ababa, Africa, African Union, Agriculture, Business, China, East Africa, Economic growth, Ethiopia, Ethiopian government, Hailemariam Desalegn, India, Investment, Millennium Development Goals, Politics of Ethiopia, Sub-Saharan Africa, tag1

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Breeders and other scientists can use seeds and other plant genetic resources to develop and share improved varieties

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- Meeting the world’s food needs through better conservation of crop diversity

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30 January 2014, Rome – A new FAO publication is aimed at improving conservation of food crops, many of which are crucial to the world’s food and nutrition security.

The publication, Genebank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, outlines voluntary, international standards for the many repositories – or gene banks – around the world that store seeds and other materials used to reproduce plants, as well as living plants in the field.

More than 7 million samples of seeds, tissues and other plant-propagating materials from food crops, along with their wild relatives, are safeguarded in about 1,750 gene banks.

The standards are designed to guide users in implementing the most appropriate technologies and procedures for the collection, conservation and documentation of crop diversity. Their wide application also supports research that could stem the loss of biodiversity and boost sustainability in agriculture, both necessary conditions for feeding a world population that is expected to exceed 9 billion by the year 2050.

Well-managed gene banks help to preserve genetic diversity and make it available to breeders and other scientists, who can then use it to develop and share improved varieties, including those adapted to particular agro-ecological conditions.

“As the world’s population grows and continues to face a wide range of climate, environmental and other challenges, maintaining a healthy variety of seeds and other plant genetic resources for the benefit of people in all countries will be essential to keeping agricultural and food systems sustainable and resilient, generation after generation,” said Ren Wang, FAO Assistant Director-General.

“Gene banks help bridge the past and the future by ensuring the continued availability of plant genetic resources for research and for breeding new varieties that meet the consumers’ continually evolving needs and a changing climate. They help us to conserve plant genetic resources and to improve them; they also help countries to share and exchange genetic resources with each other,” said Linda Collette, Secretary of FAO’s intergovernmental Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

Wide range of applications

The publication was prepared under the guidance of the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which in 2013 endorsed and urged the universal adoption of international standards for conservation in seed banks, field gene banks and for in vitro and cryopreservation of plant tissue.

The non-binding standards address a wide range of issues, including techniques for collecting samples; consistent labelling; protection from fungi, bacteria, pests and physical stress factors; viability and genetic integrity testing; and, developing strategies for the rapid multiplication of samples for distribution.

The world’s gene banks differ greatly in the size of their collections and the human and financial resources at their disposal. The Standards will help gene bank managers strike a balance between scientific objectives, resources available, and the objective conditions under which they work.

FAO experts consulted with a wide range of partners, including those at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a global partnership whose research is carried out at 15 centers worldwide, in particular Bioversity International; gene bank managers; relevant academic and research institutions; and, national focal points for plant genetic resources for food and agriculture.

The Standards stress the importance of securing and sharing material along with related documentation in line with national and international regulations. They are an important tool in implementing the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, and the Second Global Plan of Action for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, both of which support countries in the conservation and sustainable use of crop diversity.

Sourced here

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Related info:

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-     Ethiopia plans GM crop boost for cotton industry

-     Smallholder Commercialisation in Africa: A Framework for an  Enabling Environment

-     Crop breeding and patenting threaten future planting

-     Preserving indigenous seeds – Maintaining biodiversity

-     “No seed, no green revolution”

-     DuPont bets on Africa’s global food role with Pannar Seed deal

-     Opinion: African policymakers must reject seed colonialism

-     Is Africa about to Lose the Right to Her Seed?

-     Seed banks great and small

-     Quality seeds for quicker food sufficiency

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- Empowering women helps narrow the socioeconomic gap -

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Women are a cornerstone of African economic development. According to recent estimates, they provide approximately 70 per cent of agricultural labour and produce about 90 per cent of all food. Their economic activity rate, which measures the percentage of people who furnish the supply of labour for the production of economic goods, ranks highest compared to other regions of the world. However, women are predominantly employed in the informal sector or they occupy low-skill jobs. This can be illustrated by considering the percentage of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector, which scores lowest among all regions of the world with a value of only 8.5 per cent.

Basically, gender refers to the constellation of rules and identities that prescribe and proscribe behavior for persons, in their social roles as men and women. These rules and identities may be deliberate or unintended, explicit or implicit, conscious or unconscious. All societies of the world are gendered.

Gender requires analysis because a common outcome of the gendering of social activity is an unequal and inefficient distribution, between men and women, of the capabilities for realizing well-being. Many—if not most—people would agree that women and girls are disadvantaged in life relative to men and boys, even though national statistics sometimes do a poor job of capturing the relevant inequalities.

The pervasiveness of female disadvantage is one of the most interesting and least understood features of economic life. Certainly there are people, sometimes very influential and intelligent people, who believe that comparing the well-being of boys and girls, or men and women, is like comparing papayas and lemons. One is sweet and the other sour, and the difference does not imply unequal welfare. Men and boys have their lives to lead and girls and women theirs. Nevertheless, girls and women in Africa face unequal chances for education, less inheritance and ownership of assets, discrimination in employment and occupations, violence at home and in public spaces, and limited political representation. These add up to unambiguously diminished welfare and capacity to fulfill life aspirations. Gender matters for women, but it also matters for men. Much of the population of sub-Saharan Africa has experienced long-term stagnation or declines in income and general standards of living. Many people still journey from sorrowful, hungry, and frustrating life to early, painful, and diseased death. Perhaps reversing this situation depends on changing structures of gender. The skeptic might immediately want to put down this book.

Gender and economic growth? The two have little to do with each other. But consider a few lines of argument. One goes as follows: African economies are poor because of high levels of corruption; men are more corruptible than women; men dominate African governments; therefore the solution is to encourage and campaign for more representation of women in African governments. For those who think this argument a trifle glib, consider this passage from a recent book authored by the World Bank: “Greater women’s rights and more equal participation in public life by women and men are associated with cleaner business and government and better governance. Where the influence of women in public life is greater, the level of corruption is lower . . . women can be an effective force for rule of law and good governance.”

The major problem in developing countries is that parents want children for old-age security. The parents do not take into account that their extra children may generate burdens on society as a whole. Empowering women seems to be associated with lower fertility rates. If lower fertility rates generate more rapid economic growth, then the syllogism is complete.

Men and women make differing choices, choices that constitute part of the gendering of economic activity. But the motivation for those choices is in part the differing opportunities that men and women experience. The structure of an economy—rights over property and persons, organization of market transfers of property and persons, and rules regarding nonmarket transfers of rights—is itself gendered.

If Africans were rich, the analysis of the economic dimensions of gender would be less urgent. Unfortunately, most African countries are getting poorer.

At the same time, the structures of households are constituted by the choices that the people within them make. One important household choice concerns investments in children. Parents make different investments in girls than they do in boys, which affects the skills, outlooks, and rights that girls take with them into adulthood. Because of this, young women will make choices that are different from those of young men. The social patterns that emerge from these choices become viewed as part of the economic structure of a given society, which in turn shapes the choices of the next generation of parents.

There is a pithy saying that economics is all about how people make choices, while sociology is all about how people don’t actually have any choices to make. There is no need to reduce the social sciences to such gross stereotypes, but the saying does capture the essence of how to think about the relationship between structure and agency.

Sourced here

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Related posts:

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-     AfDB Gender Strategy –  News & Initiatives

-     Only 15% of Davos attendees are women, even fewer than last year

-     Time and energy saving for women

-     Smallholder Commercialisation in Africa: A Framework for an Enabling Environment

-     Rural women’s economic empowerment

-     Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma urges women to play their part in African renaissance

-     Global Future Resides in Women

-     First women-initiated bank launched in Ethiopia

-     Women food heroes awarded

-     On International Day of Rural Women, Ban Calls for More Empowerment and End to Discrimination

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-  Youth Integration Into Agriculture An Essential Element Initially & Long Term

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

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• Eleven million youth are expected to enter Africa’s labor market every year for the next decade.
• Despite rapid growth in formal wage sector jobs, the majority of these youth are likely to work on family farms and in household enterprises, often with very low incomes.
• To boost young people’s earnings, governments need to hasten overall business climate reforms, strengthen basic education, and make land, infrastructure, training and financing more accessible.

WASHINGTON, January 27, 2014—Raising earning potential among Africa’s growing youth population is a major priority for the region that will require strong action on multiple fronts, according to a new World Bank report, Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa.

With youth now making up the largest share of the population in most African countries, it is more urgent than ever to pave the way for more productive job opportunities, the report notes. This is true regardless of the type of work that young people will do—in the fast-growing modern wage sector, in household enterprises, or on millions of small family-run farms.

With the right combination of policies in place, Africa’s position as the “youngest” region in the world—in contrast to most other regions where populations are rapidly aging—could lead to greater prosperity at the household level, and major economic gains for African countries.

Young people are trying to find more productive work

“All young people need to have acquired basic literacy and numeracy, without which their earning potential remains low,” said Deon Filmer, one of the authors of the report and Lead Economist in the World Bank’s Development Research Group and Africa Region. “They also need to be able to access land, financing, and training, all of which play an important role in improving their prospects.”

In a short video on the youth employment challenge in Africa, young men and women in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Niger explain the challenges they face when seeking work, what they need to be able to prosper further, and what they aspire to going forward.

“Once I completed school, I was compelled to start farming to feed my family—my siblings and parents,” said Felix Roa, who lives near Malindi in coastal Kenya, and is growing an acre of maize, while also running a small store selling just a few essential items.

Although Felix would like to expand his business or find a job in a city, he has not yet done so, partly because he lacks the right qualifications. “Leaving to find work would not be easy because there are already those in the city competing for the same jobs,” he said.

Most young people will seek work in the informal sector

While the formal sector—with its larger firms and structured wage jobs—will eventually become Africa’s biggest employer, the majority of people in African countries—nearly 80 percent—work in the informal sector as Felix does, often for very low earnings. This sector will continue to employ the majority of young people.

“The informal sector has been historically neglected,” said Louise Fox, co-author of the report, former World Bank Lead Economist and currently Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. “Young people, including in rural and semi-urban areas, tend to seize opportunities when they can.  The report argues that scaling up support to access those opportunities is essential.”

Youth face multiple obstacles in finding pathways to higher earnings.  For example, the Northern Uganda Social Action Fund has shown that youth who received cash to pay for training and to acquire assets needed to run a business—relieving both skills and financing constraints—earned 41 percent more than those who did not receive the grants.

In both Liberia and Uganda, training adolescent girls in both behavioral and technical skills resulted in increasing employment while also shaping life skills and reducing risky behavior. In Uganda, employment among trained girls rose by 32 percent.

Young people from poor households can also benefit enormously from social safety nets, in the form of regular transfers of cash from governments to the most vulnerable families, or opportunities to earn income from public works programs.

These programs enable families to keep children in school and ensure that they can buy enough food for everyone, regardless of drought or sudden losses of income. This safeguards their health and education foundations. Safety net programs can also target the poorest youth with interventions such as skills training, as is currently being done in Nigeria with public works.

Youth employment is not a one-dimensional challenge

As the report explains, youth employment is not a simple or one-dimensional challenge, and African governments will need to act in many ways to address it holistically.

Government policies will need to help build human capital and improve the business environment, so that the private sector can seize opportunities that arise from inevitable changes in the competitiveness of other regions. The report emphasizes that productivity must increase in agriculture, household enterprises, and the modern wage sector so that all young people can see better prospects ahead.

Working towards these goals is closely related to more inclusive economic growth—as  African economies reduce their reliance on extractive industries and look towards other sectors that have greater potential to employ large numbers of people—and is aligned with the World Bank’s twin goals of eliminating extreme poverty and achieving shared prosperity.

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Sourced here:

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RELATED

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• Full Report: Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Overview: Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Press Release: More Productive Jobs for Africa’s Youth Vital for the Region’s Economic Progress, says New WB Report

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WEBSITES

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World Development Report 2013

World Bank Human Development in Africa

World Bank Jobs Page

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MULTIMEDIA

 

Video

Increasing Job Opportunities for Young People in Africa

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View All Multimedia »

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Israel to Finance Wolkayit Sugar Project

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An Israel construction company, Natifa, secured a loan to be used to finance the Wolkayit Sugar development project from an Israeli bank. Reliable sources told The Reporter that Natifa has been negotiating with Israeli banks that could finance the Wolkayit Sugar factory that the Ethiopian Government planned to build in the Tigrai Regional State. Sources said that Natifa secured more than 100 million dollars loan for the project from an Israeli bank. Natifa is working with a local construction company, Yemane Girmay Construction. The public relations department of the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation said it is not aware of the said loan agreement. However, sources said that a loan agreement will be signed by the governments of Israel and Ethiopia in the near future.

Located at Tigray Regional State 1,350 km from Addis Ababa, Western Zone, Wolkayit Woreda, the Wolkayit Sugar project is one of the ten new sugar factories that the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation is building in different parts of the country.

According to the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation, the Wolkayit Sugar project will have one sugar factory with a cane crushing capacity of 24,000 tons a day that enables it to produce 484,000 tons of sugar and 20,827 cubic meter ethanol per annum.

It will have 45,000 hectares of sugarcane plantation field getting its water supply from Zarriema River over which a dam known by the name “May-Day Dam” will be built. The construction work of the dam is currently being carried out by a domestic private company – Sur Construction Private Limited Company. The dam upon completion will have 840 meter width and 135.5 meter height. The dam will have a capacity of holding 3,497,000,000 cubic meter of water. The sugar cane plantation is projected to produce 140 tons of sugarcane per hectare.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201402032017.html

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Ethiopia, Niger sign a General Cooperation Agreement

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Foreign Minister, Dr. Tedros Adhanom and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and African Integration of the Republic of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, signed a General Cooperation Agreement on Saturday (February 1) with the aim of strengthening cooperation and partnership between the two countries.

 The Agreement as well is intended to address the contemporary challenges and to realize sustainable development in the continent through stronger cooperation in matters of mutual interest in multilateral forums.

Following the signing ceremony, Dr. Tedros commended the desire and commitment of the Government of Niger to sign the Cooperation Agreement with Ethiopia with the view to deepen the bilateral relations of the two countries. He also noted that the Cooperation Agreement would be a foundational basis and framework to coordinate efforts to tackle regional and global challenges. It would help the two countries to work closely in various fields, including trade, investment, peace, and security, he indicated.  Hailing the friendship and the existing relations between the two nations, he suggested that there should be closer collaboration and coordination to expand and strengthen the bilateral relations based on mutual benefit and mutual help. African project of African integration.

Mohamed Bazoum on his part mentioned that the agreement would help the two countries to cooperate and work for the realization of African Renaissance. Niger was fully committed to consolidate its bilateral relations with Ethiopia to hasten and advance development projects, he added.

http://www.mfa.gov.et/news/more.php?newsid=2982

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Gatekeepers of Executive Power Meet in Addis

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Secretaries of cabinets, gatekeepers of the most powerful guys in their respective governments, are in Addis Ababa this week, attending the Africa Cabinet Government Network (ACGN) meeting.

Comprising of cabinet secretaries from 11 African countries, the network held its first inaugural roundtable workshop on Monday, February 3, 2014, at the Addis Hilton Hotel. The meeting will stay until Friday, February 7, 2014, Fortune learnt. Cabinet secretariats from Ethiopia, Malawi, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Somaliland, South Sudan, Uganda, Zambia and Zanzibar are represented at the workshop. Abdon Agaw Jock Nhial, representing the government of South Sudan, expects to share experiences as the newest nation in Africa.

The purpose of the meeting is to share experience on how secretariats can better support their cabinets in improving their decision making through use of evidence and to expand the Network, according to  Ernest Surrur (PhD), the chair of ACGN.

Ethiopia needs to strengthen its cabinet system, although it has rich history in it, going back to the early 1920s, Getachew Reda, advisor to Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, said during his opening speech.

The program is sponsored by DfID and Adam Smith International.

http://addisfortune.net/breaking-news/gatekeepers-of-executive-power-meet-in-addis/

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USAID Fuels Ethiopian Bamboo Sector With $1.75M Grant

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-  Ethiopia is home to a large proportion of Africa’s bamboo, but is yet to optimise its production -

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Tjada Mckenna, assistant to Food Security at the USAID, Mark B. Feierstein, associate administrator of the USAID and Earll Gart, assistant administrator for Africa, gathered at the facility of African Bamboo in the Vatican area of Mekanisa road on Friday, January 31, 2014.

USAID awarded a total grant of 1.75 million dollars to African Bamboo Plc on Friday, January 31, 2014, at the latter’s headquarters, in the Vatican area of Mekanisa road.

One million dollars of the grant is for developing and testing a heating process to make industrial and commercial quality bamboo using biofuels from organic waste, such as coffee husks and residue from processing the bamboo. The second grant of 750,ooo dollars is said to help the Company prepare feasibility studies and market analyses to attract investment capital and to meet requirements for exports to the United States and the European Union.

African bamboo is one out of a total 475 organisations that applied for the award, which targets supporting innovative projects and integrating clean energy technology into the agriculture sectors of developing countries to improve production.

The Company wants to engage more aggressively in its innovative work in renewable energy and agro-forestry processing now that it has won the award, says Khalid Dury, the general manager.

The Duri family purchased Fortune Enterprise under a privatisation bid in 1998. The Enterprise has 15 years of experience in woodwork. It was in 2012 that African Bamboo was registered in Ethiopia and the Netherlands, establishing a bamboo-based floorboard business.

A study by the International Institute for Environment & Development (IIED), in 2009, revealed that Ethiopia has 959,662ha of highland and lowland bamboo. This equates to two thirds of Africa’s current total bamboo resources. The Benishangul Gumuz Regional State is home to the largest proportion of it.

Many farmers in the highlands manage and harvest highland bamboo in small stands on their farms; they harvest the culms from November to February and from June to September. The buyers of the culms include local furniture makers and consumers who use it for construction materials.

Large scale bamboo manufacturing is little known in Ethiopia, with only two factories currently in operation, and a third currently having its machinery installed.

While Bamboo Star Agro-Forestry, established four years ago, employs 250 people in the Benishangul Gumuz Region, Assossa Zone, and has 393,000ha of bamboo plantations, Adal Industrial Group Plc is also involved in large scale production at its factory in the Sidama Zone of the Southern Region. The Company, established in 1989, first began its relationship with bamboo by producing incense sticks. In 1995, it expanded its use of the plant and started producing bamboo toothpicks. Nine years later, in 2004, the company introduced technology from the Far East and began producing bamboo flooring, curtains, table mats and charcoal briquettes.

African Bamboo follows on from these two, planning to get involved in bamboo production, and is currently installing machinery at its facility. The company intends to produce bamboo panels for outdoor decking, construction and pre-fabricated bamboo houses. It has already entered into agreements for bamboo farming with over 30 cooperatives, benefiting over 2,000 farmers in the Sidama Zone.

African Bamboo plan to export 100pc of its production. While the total investment needed for production is estimated at 250 million Br, the Company has so far been able to get just half of this amount, Fortune learnt.

“We have already secured 52pc of the market in Germany and are hoping to find the remainder in the rest of the world,” Khalid told Fortune.

For USAID’s Mark Feierstein, the award illustrates the commitment of the US government to assist Ethiopia’s five-year Growth & Transformation Plan (GTP) through public-private partnerships.

http://addisfortune.net/articles/usaid-fuels-ethiopian-bamboo-sector-with-1-75m-grant/

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New Enterprise for Ethiopia’s First Express Road under Formation

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If the proclamation and the organizational structure fail to be finalized before the toll road construction is completed (pictured), the ERA will administer the road until the enterprise is established.

The 82Km Addis Ababa–Adama Toll Road is under construction by a Chinese contractor, and due to be completed soon after consuming a total investment of 16 billion Br. Former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi launched its construction in November 2010, heralding the government’s Growth & Transformation Plan (GTP).

The Export-Import (ExIm) Bank of China has advanced a 20-year, $350 million dollar loan to finance the project and the remaining 43pc of the cost will be covered by the Ethiopian government. Beijing Expressway, a subsidiary of Beijing Enterprises Holdings, is the consultant on the project.

The road is scheduled to be inaugurated in May 2014, by Prime Minister Hailemariam, a senior government official in the Ministry of Transport confirmed to Fortune.

The road is the first toll way road for Ethiopia, requiring motorists pay a minimum of 50 Br upon entry of one of the 48 gates in seven stations, sources disclosed to Fortune. Nonetheless, a state-owned enterprise, which will manage the collection of these fees, would have to be established prior to April 2014, and the Council of Ministers will have to vote on the toll fee the public will be charged.

A bill for the establishment of the Enterprise, drafted by experts at the Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA), was sent to Worqneh Gebeyehu, minister of Transport (MoT), in November 2013, according to an official at ERA, who declined to be identified due to the confidentiality of the matter. The Minister is preparing to table the bill to the Council of Ministers (CoM) for approval this month, Fortune has confirmed from senior officials at the Ministry.

The Enterprise, which will likely be named the Ethiopian Payable Roads Enterprise (EPRE), will be accountable to the Ministry, with an oversight of its operation by a board of directors. A general manager will head it, with three directors responsible for toll management, toll operation and engineering as well as human resources. The establishment of the Enterprise is estimated to cost 202 million Br, Fortune learnt.

The Administration is on headhunt to hire the general manager; and a staff member in the engineering department of ERA is the most likely candidate for the job, sources disclosed to Fortune.

The EPRE will have a total of 760 employees for a start, who will enjoy a monthly compensation of 15pc higher salary scale from what ERA pays its employees, according to those familiar with the bill. The minimum salary an employee would be paid is 760 Br, while the highest could be 16,000 Br, Fortune has learnt.

Three will be three teams under Toll Operations & Engineering Department: Engineering procurement and contact management; road safety and security; and electro mechanical management. However, this directorate has been a cause of contention between officials of the ERA and those at the Ministry.

“The ERA is claiming that the toll operation and engineering tasks should be left to it, as they are the ones making the road,” an official told Fortune.

If the proclamation and the organizational structure fail to be finalized in time before the opening of the road for operation, ERA will administer the road until the Enterprise gets established, said an official, although he expressed confidence that the Enterprise will be established in time. A senior official at the Ministry confirms his view.

The six-lane expressway, which has been under construction for the past three years, is now 82pc completed. Asphalting a section of the road at the entrance to Adama, building offices, traffic signs and lights are works that remain to be done.

The highway will cut down travel time between the two cities to 40 minutes from the current two hours. The toll amount to be has been under study for six months by a special committee at the Authority, according to a senior official at the ERA, who requested anonymity. Charging toll fees and controlling access to the road will both be done by machines. These will be procured and assembled by the contractor, the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC). The money that is collected from the tolls will be used for the maintenance of the road itself, said the official at ERA.

The road has eight tollbooths along with cameras, and will be equipped with lighting throughout the entire 80km stretch. Eight large bridges and 77 smaller ones are also part of the project.

The expressway starts from Tulu Dimtu, 2.8Km from Akaki, and links with Dukem, Bishoftu (Debre Zeit) and Modjo, before reaching Adama. Of the expressway’s tollgates, Addis Ababa and Adama each have one, while the others are to be located at six interchanges.

The current Addis Ababa-Adama road handles 19,000 to 20,000 vehicles daily, which is well above its capacity, according to transport officials. The new expressway can handle 15,000 vehicles comfortably, however, and could be upgraded to an eight-lane road if the need arose.

http://addisfortune.net/articles/new-enterprise-for-ethiopias-first-express-road-under-formation/

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Quality Japanese Leather Producers Invest in Ethiopia

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-  The investment is a massive boost to the government, who target the leather industry as a priority in their GTP

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The arrival of Hiroki, which sells quality leather at high prices in Japan is an opportunity for the burgeoning leather industry, say Ethiopian officials.

Hiroki Co. Ltd, a Japanese-based leather producing factory, is set to start production in Ethiopia in mid-March, with an investment of close to 10 million Br.

The first Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) to Ethiopia in the leather industry, Hiroki, which already established the Hiroki Addis Manufacturing S.C in September last year, will start producing leather garments, bags, wallets and shoes for export to the Japanese market.

The Company decided to engage in production having studied the marketability of Ethiopian leather, says Youngil Song, president of Hiroki Addis.

“We decided to open a factory in Ethiopia because of the availability of quality leather raw material,” Song said. “It is one of the finest leather in the world.”

Hiruki’s decision to open up a factory in Ethiopia – which will be based in a rented building in Alemgena town, in the Oromia Region, located some 26 km from Addis Abeba – was also prompted by the availability of cheap labour.

Hiruki’s leather jackets are sold at high prices in Japan, costing between $2,000 dollars and $5,000 dollars. Hiroki’s leather specialty shop is located in the Yokohama Motomachi area, which is one of the biggest shopping streets.

The factory targets an annual production of 1,300 pairs of Ethiopian sheep garments, 8,000 bags, 3,600 wallets and 7,000 shoes during the first year of production. The Company will start production with 30 employees, according to Song.

The arrival of three machines from the Port of Djibouti, which the factory expects in three or four weeks of time, will lead to the commencing of production, Song told Fortune.

In three years time, however, it plans to acquire a plot in the Bole Lemi Industrial Zone – the first hub exclusively for export-oriented manufacturers – to build its own factory. When it moves to Lemi, the factory plans to raise the number of employees to over 100.

For the government, which managed to earn $32.1 million dollars in the first quarter of the current fiscal year from the export of leather, Hiroki’s investment is a welcome opportunity.

“Hiroki’s decision to invest in Ethiopia is a welcome decision, as it focuses on high quality products,” says Tadesse Haile, state minister for Industry. “They recognise the unique character of Ethiopian leather.”

Although the $32.1 million dollars earned in the first quarter of this fiscal year has increased by $7.3 million dollars compared to the figure for the same period in the previous year, it still falls short of meeting the target.

The leather industry is one among those in the manufacturing sector that have been given priority under the government’s Growth & Transformation Plan (GTP). However, Ethiopia earned $123.4 million dollars in leather exports in the 2012/13 fiscal year. This was just 64.3pc of the projected target of $192 million dollars.

The decision to start production in Ethiopia is part of Hiroki’s 13-year plan, which also includes introducing products to the European market in 2015.

For Wondu Legesse, director general of the Leather Industry Development Institute (LIDI), Hiruki’s investment in Ethiopia is an opportunity for the emerging leather industry.

“Their quality of leather making is superior,” Wondu said. “They bring expertise and technique to the sector.”

http://addisfortune.net/articles/quality-japanese-leather-producers-invest-in-ethiopia/

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New Maritime Code Fit For a Landlocked Ethiopia

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-  The previous 50-year-old code was still based on having access to the ports in Asseb and Massawa

The Ethiopian Maritime Affairs Authority (EMAA) is in the final stages of  a new national maritime code. It will replace the 50-year-old maritime code, which has been in place, with a few adjustments, up to now.

The process started two years ago and the draft was completed in 2013. It took a year because of the shortage of experts in the sector, said Abebe Tefera, acting director of Legal Service & Collaboration at the Authority.

“The 1960 code was issued while Ethiopia had access to the ports of Asseb and Massawa,” says Abebe. “Thus, it was inapplicable to a landlocked Ethiopia.”

The bulk of the 1960 code, which deals with the administration, registration and usage of the two ports, has now been changed. The older code required cargo registration to take place at the two ports. According to the new code, however, this process will take place at the Authority’s headquarters located around La Gare, in Addis Abeba, along the Ras Mekonnen Street.

Although landlocked, Ethiopia continues to own ships and engage in international maritime commerce. Most provisions of the 1960 code, which assume the availability of ports, needed to be changed by legislating a body of law concerning ships and commercial transactions in a landlocked nation.

“The draft Code has been prepared after relating Ethiopia’s context to international maritime law,” Abebe said.

The new drafted code has three volumes: the first of these deals with maritime safety and security. It focuses on the safety of maritime from natural disasters, such as hurricanes and flood. Another component of the new code, also related to safety, is the carrying capacity of ships. Accordingly, ships must obey the standard carriage of items that is stated on the law, in order to avoid disasters resulting from overloads. The maritime security is also incorporated in this volume from the point of view of avoiding and controlling piracy.

The second volume has contents related to maritime pollution, where the conservation of the high seas from pollution is highlighted.

The last volume concerns issues related to cargo, packaging and the business of ship transportation.

The EMAA is now working to complete the production of reference documents within six months.

Experts have already been for the preparation of the reference, Abebe said. The Authority hopes to finalise the reference and send it to the Federal Transport Authority (FTA), the Council of Ministers (CoM) and finally to Parliament for approval and legislation.

“We hope to accomplish all this before the closure of Parliament by the end of this year in June,” says Abebe.

The preparation of the reference comes in three parts. The first is related to the code with the Constitution, in order to avoid contradictions. The second is preparing legislative intent, which refers to explanatory notes indicating the motives and advantages of the code. Lastly, the code will be translated before it is submitted to the Council of Ministers (CoM) and Parliament. The fourth and final duty relates to the legislative process. The Authority follows up the legislative process until the draft is enacted into law.

The Authority was established in 2007 in accordance with proclamation no. 549/2007. It began operation in November 2008 and is answerable to the FTA.

After the establishment of the Authority, its main and first duty was drafting the new code to replace the previous one.

http://addisfortune.net/articles/new-maritime-code-fit-for-a-landlocked-ethiopia/

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Belgian Men’s Clothing Maker Considers Ethiopia

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Belgian company, Celio International, is looking into opening a textile and garment factory in Ethiopia. Celio, which specializes in men’s clothing,  came to Ethiopia on January 12, 2014 as part of a trade mission.
The Wallonia Agency for Trade and Investment, a Belgian governmental agency in charge of foreign trade promotion and Investment in Wallonia, which is one of the three Belgian regions, sponsored the event.
The Delegation of 12 companies represented by 16 people stayed for a whole week, meeting 50 Ethiopian entrepreneurs.  They were interested in trading opportunities in textiles, manufacturing, sugar, and agribusiness, according to Tom Neijens, First Secretary/ Deputy Head of Mission at the Belgian embassy.
“Some companies will come back to further explore, others already concluded some trade deals,” said Neijens in an online interview. “We are hoping to receive the announcement of a Belgian investment in an important sector soon.”
Neijens added that there are around 10 Belgian companies with investments in Ethiopia. There are many more investors active as traders, coffee bean buyers and involved in agricultural commodities. Most are active in the horticulture and flower business.
In the 2012/13 fiscal year, Ethiopia exported nearly 10,000tns of textiles and garments. In the Growth & Transformation Plan (GTP) textiles and garments are one of the major focal points of the manufacturing sector.
The GTP plans to increase export earnings from the textile sector from the 21.8 million birr garnered in the previous five year; Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) to one billion birr. But the sector brought in only 244.6 million birr in the previous years of the GTP which is much smaller than the 600 million birr targeted.
There has been a lot of interest in the Ethiopian textile industry from foreign companies. One of the companies that opened a factory is Ayka Addis. Ayka is based in Turkey and came to Ethiopia with the express invitation of the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and that in turn awakened the interest of 50 Turkish textile companies.
Cheap labor attracts many investors to Ethiopia and it is one of the countries that benefits from Barak Obama’s African Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA) which allows specific countries to export their goods to America without tariffs or quotas.
Textile producers are challenged by lack of electricity, water and other amenities. They also are concerned by slowdowns from bureaucracy as they attempt to obtain credit and  business licenses.
The first Ethiopian textile company was created in 1939. Bahir Dar University is the only university with a Textile Engineering department.
This is the second trade mission from Belgium. In the next few months more than ten Belgian Companies will come for the trade mission. Celio was founded in 1985 by Marc and Laurent Grosman. The company has more than 1,000 stores in 70 countries and sells 35 million items annually.

http://www.capitalethiopia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3999:belgian-mens-clothing-maker-considers-ethiopia&catid=54:news&Itemid=27

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Ethiopian investors see fish farm potential

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Overfishing, water pollution, and lack of awareness are challenges investors face if they hope to develop the nation’s first aquiculture business. They do see a huge potential of about 40,000 tons per year, however.
A recent aquaculture trade and investment meeting with representatives from the Netherlands and Ethiopia, at Siyonat Hotel on January 28, lasted five days and was commissioned by Agri Business Support Facility (ABSF), a part of the Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce & Sectoral Associations with support from the Netherlands’ Embassy.
“We aim to initiate model fish farms,” said Rachel Tocklu, managing director of Teampro, the consulting company that organized the mission.
“Ethiopians learn more by example than from experimentation. We want to show fish farmers there is a better way to conduct business with higher profits while still preserving the assets of the country,” she said.
Aquaculture in Ethiopia is still in its initial stages. The current production of capture fisheries is estimated at 16,000 metric tons. The main fish species are Tilapia, Catfish and Perch.
The necessary players in the field; fish feed producers, fish farm equipment suppliers, processers and trainers have to be recruited from scratch, creating a large source of employment.
After 2011, the Ministry of Agriculture established seed production centers which can supply potential fish companies. It also facilitated access to credit and provided basic marketing infrastructure such as roads and communication.
The Ministry says that Ethiopia is ripe for the establishment of a fish industry because of the country’s agro-ecologies and climatic conditions. Commercially important fish like Carp are also widely available.  The increasing demand for fish and fish products both locally and abroad and the wide variety of species are other potential positives.
“Orthodox Ethiopians fast more than 130 days a year and fish are an excellent source of protein,” Tocklu said.
Ethiopia’s potential for fishery development is in its 20 freshwater lakes, 12 river basins and 15 reservoirs. According to Wagenigen University, a Dutch institute, 15,156 square kms. of Ethiopia’s land is suitable for aquaculture. There are 180 different species of fish in Ethiopia and 30 of those are native to the country.

http://www.capitalethiopia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3997:ethiopian-investors-see-fish-farm-potential-&catid=54:news&Itemid=27

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Shoes in a Snap

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Local shoe makers are succeeding despite foreign competition

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Nowadays, it is not unusual to see the people of Addis sporting clothes made in Ethiopia. This trend is most remarkable where shoes are concerned, with brands like Solerebels, and Sheba shoes gaining international prominence.

In 2002, Ethiopian shoe manufacturers seemed doomed to fail when Chinese and other foreign shoes galore entered the market. The demand for Ethiopian shoes decreased dramatically when these foreign shoes, which had very nice and flashy designs but low durability were imported to Ethiopia.

But after 2007, things began to look up for Ethiopian shoe manufacturers when they learned from their mistakes and started making attractively designed shoes with all the sturdiness of the older models.

Bermero Shoes is a part of this resurgence. Bermero, located in Piassa next to Oslo Café around Taytu Hotel, opened its doors to customers in 2011. Meron Tezera, 34, part owner and manager of the store, says she and her husband chose the title of their company because of their names. “My husband’s name is Berhanu. We took the first three letters of his name and four from mine to create Bermero,” Meron explained.

The store buys some of the leather it requires from Sheba Leather Industry, according to Meron. They use leather made from sheep, goat and oxen skin. The price of their shoes depends on the quality of leather used as well as the design. For instance, a bag made of export quality leather will cost 1,000 birr while that made of a lesser leather will cost 300- 600 birr.

Like several of the new local shoe manufacturers you can purchase either ready or custom made shoes at the store but they have added an additional twist by being able to make the shoes, or other accessories like phone/tablet bags in around 30 minutes. At Bermero, the customers choose from a variety of options of styles from a display. They select the leather, color, sole and details they want themselves. Afterwards a Bermero employee comes to take their measurements. At least that is how things were going.  “Initially, we were able to meet the demands of our clients,” Meron said. “However, then we started getting so many requests as the shoes became popular, that  we were unable to cope with the orders.”

The popularity of the shoes compounded with the electricity which goes on and off without a moment’s notice has decreased the productivity at the store and now consumers often must wait a week before they can get their custom ordered shoes.

Bermero currently employs 31 people. The shop while located in the center of town and convenient for shoppers is not conducive for the production of shoes. “We have to balance the display area and the work space in a 70 m2 area,” said Meron. “But business is still good. We have a young customer base. Though exported shoes are still serious competition because they are cheaper, there is a reversal in attitude about Ethiopian shoes.” At Bermero, a pair of men’s shoes can be bought for 800- 1000 birr. Children’s footwear costs 400-450 birr and a woman can purchase shoes for 800 birr or less.

While many Ethiopians have changed their attitudes towards local products, there are some who complain that the shoes produced here have imperfect finishing work. One of them is Hannah Abel, a 26 year old aspiring actress. “No two pairs of shoes produced here look exactly alike,” she stated. “While that is not necessarily a bad thing, there has to be uniformity when you produce shoes with the same design. Because uniformity comes with standards and standards denote quality,” She had spent two hours looking at locally made shoes all over Piassa before finally coming to Bermero. After looking at the Bermero shoes for a few minutes, she left for home. “Maybe I will try again another day,” she sighed in disappointment. “I can’t stand shoddy work and nothing I saw today has impressed me.”

Another place where you can buy locally made shoes is Gabrielle Underwear and Shoe Shop found just a few blocks away from Bermero. There the owners buy shoes made in Merkato and Shera Terra. According to the management of the store, agents of the shoe makers bring them products to sell. One such agent is Shimeles Tadesse, 30, who works in association with twenty shoe producers. These shoe makers were affected most severely during  the 2002 foreign shoe invasion. “I learned the business of shoe making at my brother’s knees,” he says. “There is a lot that goes on behind the making of a shoe.” According to Shimeles, first someone cuts the leather into the appropriate shapes and another person assembles all the pieces including the inner lining into the proper pattern. The pieces are then sewn together before being stretched over a molding. After that one person prepares the sole of the shoes while another cleans the upper part of the shoes. Finally, the sole and the upper part are attached together. “There are over 200,000 shoe designs circulating in the city,” Shimeles claims. “And 95pct of them are not designed by the shoe makers. They are copies of foreign shoes. Despite the flaws in the shoes and the unoriginal designs many Ethiopians still purchases these shoes.”

In 2012/13, the leather industry earned USD 123.4 million from leather exports out of which USD 19.2 million was garnered from the export of shoes, according to the Ethiopian Leather Industry Development Institute (LIDI). The leather industry got USD 220 million from 2009/10- 2011/12. This puts a lag on the leather industry which is supposed to earn half a billion dollars by the end of Growth & Transformation Plan (GTP). This is in part attributable to the illegal export of Ethiopian shoes to Sudan and Kenya. These shoes are re-imported to Ethiopia with a higher price. Industrialized shoe manufacturing in Ethiopia started with the formation of Anbessa Shoe Share in 1927. Then in the late 1930s Armenian merchants founded two shoe factories in Addis Ababa. These factories taught a number of shoemakers, who opened their own factories in Addis Ababa and trained their workers. Now, it is believed that there are more than 1,000 enterprises producing leather shoes in Addis Ababa.

http://www.capitalethiopia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4016:shoes-in-a-snap&catid=49:feature&Itemid=48

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Footwear institute signs MoU with Ethiopia for technology upgradation

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Vadodara, Feb 2:

Footwear Design and Development Institute (FDDI) has signed an agreement with Ethiopian government for technology upgradation and promotion of quality education, research and development.

“The total cost of intervention is $ 4 million and similar kind of interventions for other countries like South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Nigeria, etc, are in the pipe line,” FDDI Managing Director Rajeev Lakhara told PTI.

The institute has also provided overseas training and consultancy in Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Sudan, he said.

“The institute’s strong alliance with leading international institutions/organisations ensures international level of training on the campus and extends the scope of students/faculty exchange programme in order to equip them to meet the challenges. So far, FDDI has been able to achieve 100 per cent job placement record,” he claimed.

The Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) has allotted 10 acres of land to the institute at Ankleshwar and the construction of the campus is underway.

FDDI, established in 1986 by the Union Ministry of Commerce, provides specialised programmes in footwear design, creative designing of footwear, leather goods and accessories.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/footwear-institute-signs-mou-with-ethiopia-for-technology-upgradation/article5645571.ece

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Ethiopia earns over 172 mln USD from mineral export

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Ethiopia has earned 172 .6 million US dollars in revenue from the export of minerals in the first half of this budget year, according to the Ministry of Mines (MoM).
Ministry Public Relations Head, Bacha Faji told WIC that the stated sum of revenue was obtained from the export of gold, tantalum, marbles and gemstones.

According to Bacha, the minerals were supplied by companies and artisanal miners.
The ministry has failed to attain its target of making one billion US dollars due to lack of interest from buyers and the fall in gold prices at the global market, Bacha said.
Currently, there are 147 foreign companies in Ethiopia engaged in exploration, excavation and production of minerals, it was learnt.

http://www.waltainfo.com/index.php/explore/12184-ethiopia-earns-over-172-mln-usd-from-mineral-export-

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Poultry represents an important sub-sector in the Ethiopian agriculture. Poultry as industry is also of high economic value for the country. Poultry ‎products including eggs and meat constitute a significant share in the global food industry. Enkulal Fir-Fir or crumbled eggs with bread is common eaten for breakfast in various parts of Ethiopia. Poultry products are also known for having high nutritional content.

In Ethiopia, poultry is an integrated part of the smallholder production systems and plays a significant role in poverty alleviation.

Globally poultry is known to have a significant potential to generate income for households. For Ethiopia poultry can be both an income earner for households for household farmers and a source of foreign exchange.

Many developing and developed countries have integrated poultry in their economy. Evidences show that in 2007 nearly 145,615 farms were producing poultry and poultry products in United States of America. According to the United Nations estimation chicken population in world has reached sixteen billion. The figures from theGlobal Livestock Production and Health Atlas for 2004 show that China has the highest poultry population of 3,860,000,000, United States is second with 1,970,000,000, while Indonesia, Brazil and India have 1,200,000,000, 1,100,000,000, and 648,830,000 chickens respectively. Mexico, Russia and japan also follow the list. Poultry production has high socio-economic value and vital specially for those who are landless and who do not own cattle, sheep, or goats.

In Sub-Saharan African countries household level poultry constituted 78 per cent of the overall poultry production in 1996. In Ethiopia much of the eggs and chicken meat is produced by household farmers. The high increase in consumers’ demand for poultry products mainly in urban areas will have major implications on the prices of the products which obviously is important for those engaged in the sector

Chicken can be raised in situations with limited feed and housing resources. Chickens are ‘waste converters’: they ‘convert’ a scavenged feed resource base into animal protein. They are therefore by far the most important species for generating income for rural families.

Poultry down and feathers have also found multiple household uses and importantly numerous trade opportunities, while poultry manure is used as soil and farm pond fertilizer, hence contributing to increased crop and fish yields, and commercialization. Poultry manure is especially important to small scale farmers who have difficulty of accessing and affording fertilizers, as well as those small-scale farmers who wish to make the best possible use of all the natural resources found and available on their farms.

Domestic chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, guinea fowl, dove, pigeons, pheasants, quail and ostriches are raised throughout the world. Pheasant, quail and ostriches are more commonly found on large scale commercial farms, while other poultry (chickens, ducks, geese) are found more commonly on small-scale farms around rural, peri- urban and urban households.

Chickens were domesticated and spread to China, India, Africa, Pacific Island, and Europe. The main use of chickens has never changed. They were primarily raised for human food. In addition, their feathers were used for making cushions, litter for fertilizers and, in some societies, chickens were used in cock fighting as a source of entertainment. As the human population increases, the poultry industry continues to grow to meet the demand for poultry products in world markets. The importance of poultry farms lies in the quality of products that are provided to humans. Broiler farms provide meat that supplies the human body with high quality proteins. Layer farms provide eggs rich in proteins and vitamins, especially the fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K). Poultry farms are fast-paced operations that can fulfill the demand for meat and eggs, and can be expanded easily to meet the ever-growing Demand.

Chickens are fast growing animals. In the past, it used to take about four months to produce a two kilogram chicken. However, today a two-kilogram chicken can be produced in 42 days. Due to this fact, poultry farms can be profitable enterprises.

All over the world, there are more than 300 domestic chicken species. These are divided in three categories: commercial breeds, hybrid breeds resulting from cross-breeding and local breeds or land races. The commercial breeds can again be divided according to the purpose they are raised for. These are egg laying chicken, chicken raised for meat and both egg-laying and meat or dual-purpose breeds.

Livestock production, as one component of agriculture plays an important role in the national economy as it contributes 13-16 per cent of the total GDP. Poultry has a big potential to contribute to this sector. This is mainly because chickens are small in size and fast in reproduction compared to other species of livestock. Moreover, poultry is eco friendly and does not compete for scarce land resources.

Poultry farming is widely practiced in Africa almost every farmstead keeps some poultry mainly for consumption and for sale. Poultry production systems of tropical regions are mainly based on the scavenging indigenous chickens found in virtually all villages and households in rural areas. Approximately 80 per cent of the chicken populations in Africa are reared in these systems.

Chicken farming is an important agricultural activity in almost all rural communities of Africa which makes the best use of locally available resource. Though neglected in the development themes for a long time, now a day’s many researchers and development agents are coming into consensuses that the smallholder chicken production plays a major role in poverty alleviation and food security at household level.

The American poultry industrial sector showed that the combined value of production from broilers, eggs, turkeys, and the value of sales from chickens in 2012 was USD 38.1 billion, up 8 per cent from USD 35.3 billion in 2011. Of the combined total, 65 per cent was from broilers, 21 per cent from eggs, 14 per cent from turkeys, and less than 1 per cent from chickens. The value of broilers produced during 2012 was USD 24.8 billion, up 8 per cent from 2011. The total number of broilers produced in 2012 was 8.44 billion, down 2 per cent from 2011.

Socio-economic surveys have made it possible to make genetic improvements (based on factors important to the local communities).

The food requirement in the country is growing. Consumption of non-vegetarian food goes up with increasing purchasing power. The open market policy of the government has opened access to the introduction of in the world and also created pressure on local producers in terms of quality production.

The animal production industry has to put up with the prices but the rising price of grains and oil seeds is creating enormous pressure on the livestock sector by increasing the cost of production. For instance the dairy sector is under tremendous pressure between rapidly increasing input costs and slow increase of the price of milk while the poultry sector is most promising in terms of organized production and efficiency. The industry is maintaining the growth of eight to 12 per cent annually in spite of increasing input costs and not that fast improvement of the poultry products. The prices of eggs and chicken are also on the rise.

India is the third largest producer of table eggs in numbers after China and US. It has recently overtaken Mexico, which was the third largest egg producer. India is the fourth largest broiler producer after China, US and Brazil.

There has been a phenomenal increase in broiler production between 2002 to 2012 in spite of the crisis that arose out of bird flu scare in 2004-2006.

A great bulk of poultry and eggs are produced in the various parts of Ethiopia.

The most pressing need for many countries in Africa today is rapid industrialization and entrepreneurship for achieving the basic social and economic objectives. The development of small enterprises contributes to the expansion of existing industrial base and growth of new industries. Thus, the poultry production offers better prospects for economic growth. However the sector is facing severe problems, especially in countries like Ethiopia on account of inadequate finance, lack of technical and managerial skill, lack of efficient and modern equipment, and lack of proper infrastructural facilities among others.

Market prices of chicks, meat, and feed vary and these variations can affect enterprise profitability. Marketing is affected by factors such as high transport cost. Retail sales are only the way for marketing and income generation for rural households. Large scale organized market is essential to overcome the problems and income distribution.

Each operation in the poultry business has become a huge business by itself. Some farms specialize in producing eggs for market consumption, or for hatching chickens for the purpose of meat production. Many large farms specialize in raising broilers for meat production. Others are focused on feed preparation or on using the wastes of poultry farms for compost production and fertilizing farmlands. If managed and marketed well, all segments of the poultry business can be profitable.

Ethiopia has many favorable and conducive factors for rapid development of industries, and thus, poultry promises high opportunities.

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Sourced  here

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Related posts

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-     Reducing the impact of infectious diseases on village poultry production in Ethiopia

-     How Bill Gates Is Helping KFC Take Over Africa

-     Ethiopian Poultry mission to Visit Netherlands

-     China to look towards Africa for food items

-     New Intervention for Livestock & Irrigation

-     USAID launches New Livestock Market Dev’t Project

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(Pictured, above)  Sir Bob Geldof, an Irish rock star, left, and Abraham De Klerk, head wine maker at Awash Winery, witnessed the fruitful farm of Awash Winery on the two hour visit in Awash Merti Jersu, 115km south east of Addis Ababa

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-  The winery is part-owned by a UK equity firmed chaired by the famous Irish rock star, (Sir) Bob Geldof

Five months after being transferred into private hands, Awash Winery is eyeing an increase in its production, over three years, from seven million litres to 20 million litres. The Winery has also been using the expertise of foreign nationals to improve the taste of its wine branded as Axumite and Gouder. One such expert is Philip Pritchard, a senior advisor, with several years of experience in China, who was persuaded to come to Ethiopia by Bob Geldof, the knighted Irish rock star and activist, who owns a stake in the company.

Awash currently bottles seven million litres of wine annually. It plans to boost production under 12 brands, including the well-known Axumite, Awash and Gouder names.

Gouder is a national brand Geldof first tasted in 1984, when he got back from areas of drought in the north that had taken the world by shock. The 1984-85 Ethiopian famine had prompted many such as Geldof to galvanize the international community for help. He is known to be a force behind a LiveAid concert, a phenomenal event that was the first to get broadcast live across the world for the first time, and as a result raised over 100 million dollars for charity.

“I was back from Korem,” Geldof recalled. “I was tired, exhausted, and in a mess. I was craving for good meal and a drink.”

Geldof was taken to the Castle Castelli Restaurant, Cunningham St, in Piazza area. The wine he had was Gouder. Thirty years later, Geldof was at the same restaurant on Thursday night, January 30, 2014, where he dined with several Ethiopians, including Berhane Deressa, former mayor of Addis Ababa, who Geldof said was the first Ethiopian he had met back in the mid 1980s.

Geldof raised his glass last week to the wellbeing of a people he came to help during the darkest period of their history.

“I had thought I would be coming here perhaps twice; that was it,” he told Fortune. “Here I am, attached to these people forever.”

He was not a causal consumer of Gouder last week though. The private equity firm he chairs, 8Miles, owns Blue Nile, a company which acquired the 70-year old winery based in Addis Ababa and vineyard near the town of Ziway from the Ethiopian Privatization & Public Enterprises Supervising Agency (PPESA).

A great fan of the late Meles Zenawi, but also straight talker to the power that be, Geldof says he decided to get involved in the winery hoping to see the factory expands and improve in order to provide additional employment. The previous owner, the Upper Awash Agro Industry, has 517 employees, 32 whom are permanent.

Geldof sees his engagement in the share company as part of his progression from aid to investment and development.

“I’m tired of talking too much about aid to Africa,” he told Fortune. “We rather need job opportunities, transfer of technology and also transfer of skills.”

The improvement process involves changes in both the process of farming and bottling.

Italian investors first established the vineyard, with a 547hct of farmland, in 1943. The Winery, whose factory is located in the Lideta District of Addis, has a 500hct farm in Merti Jirsu, which was previously owned by the Upper Awash Agro Industry, and a 42hct plot in Zeway, about 163Kms south of Addis Ababa. It was nationalized following the 1974 revolution, and remained under the state’s ownership until it was privatized in 2012, for 458 million Br.

Ethiopia Imported 10,637hl of wine in the 2011/12 fiscal year, at a cost of 27.8 million dollars, according to the Ethiopian Customs & Revenue Authority (ERCA). The volume and value of imported wine showed 10.5pc and 12pc increments, respectively, compared with the previous year. However, according to 2011 figures from Data Monitor, a market analysis website, latent demand for wine in Ethiopia is estimated at 50,687hl.

Geldof walked through the farm in the Awash Melkasa area on Tuesday for the first time since the acquisition. The 63-year-old rock star was impressed with the progress on the farm.

“The good weather and soil helps to increase production,” he said during the two-hour visit.

Currently, 136hct has been used, where over a million seedlings are being transplanted. The application of new technology and an irrigation system, which are conducive to the effectiveness of the farm, are some of the new things Geldof said he was impressed with.

The transfer in technology and skills, he said, expedites development and ends dependency in Ethiopia.

“Our priorities are expanding the farm, since the shareholders will not get a profit for the next four years,” says Mulugeta Tesfakiros, a businessman who operates several companies under Muller Industries, including Muller Real Estate and the Langano Bekele Molla Hotel. His company owns 49pc of Blue Nile. “We hope to benefit from the popularity of Geldof.”

The company has brought eight wine experts from the international wine industry, not only for better handling of the farm and the factory, but also for the transfer of skills to empower the local experts, said Mulugeta.

Geldof told those at the dinner at Castelli, including Dawit Zewdie (PhD), chairman of Africa Humanitarian Action, Elleni Gebremadhin (PhD), former CEO of Ethiopian Commodities Exchange , and Sebhat Nega, a veteran politician in the ruling party, he would like to see Awash takes the taste of its wines to an international standard, thus competing with those imported to the country. The volume and value of imported wine showed 10.5pc and 12pc increase, respectively, compared with the previous year.

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Sourced here

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Related posts

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-     The Malt Effect: How the Growing Beer Industry Creates Opportunities for Barley Farmers

-     Awash Bank approves 146 mln birr for Awash Winery

-     Cheer Up, Sir Bob Geldof – Allana Potash is Preparing to Transform Ethiopia into Africa’s Agricultural Superpower

-     Ethiopia – An Irresistible Brew For Foreign Investment

-     Ethiopian beers provide gateway into exotic new world of flavor

-     Awash Winery Going Private At Last

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Eastern Nile Council of Ministers Concludes 26th Meeting, Holds next Meeting in Khartoum

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The meetings of the Eastern Nile Council of Ministers (ENCOM) will be held in Khartoum, Sudan, the organization said in a press release.

“The Republic of Sudan has offered to hold the next ENCOM meeting in Khartoum, Sudan. ENCOM has accepted the offer with appreciation. “the release said.

The Eastern Nile Council of Ministers (ENCOM), the highest governing body of the Eastern Nile Subsidiary Action Program (ENSAP) of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) has concluded its Meeting today, January 30, 2014 in Debrezeit, Ethiopia.
The ENCOM Meeting was preceded by a two-day 27th Meeting of the ENSAPT (Eastern Nile Subsidiary Action Program Team), a technical advisory body to ENCOM. The ENSAPT comprises three senior technical experts and officials from each of the member countries. The ENCOM Meeting was attended by Ethiopia, Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan.

Egypt declined to participate continuing on its decision to freeze participation in NBI activities following the signing of the CFA by six upstream member countries of the NBI.
The Ministers noted that the interruption of the ENCOM annual Meetings for the last four years had posed unprecedented challenges to the Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office (ENTRO), the executive arm of ENSAP.
The Ministers thanked the Officer-In-Charge (OIC) of ENTRO, ENTRO Senior Management and staff and development partners, particularly the World Bank Nile Team, for having sustained the cooperation and continuing delivering results notwithstanding the hard times and the challenges.
During their deliberation the Ministers pointed out that the finite Eastern Nile water resources are facing progressively increasing pressures from population growth, rapid urbanization, high economic growth rates taking place in the basin and that the pressures are likely to be amplified due to anticipated Climate Change Impacts.
They further noted that the rapid pace of water resource infrastructure development in the sub-basin makes coordinated management and operation of these structures imperative.
The Ministers, taking into account the foregoing trends, reiterated that it is high time ENSAP member countries embark expeditiously on instituting Eastern Nile wide, if not Nile Basin wide, adaptive management principles, practices and mechanisms. Only such cooperative arrangements, they pointed out, will make possible realization of system wide gains in water use efficiency and productivity; minimization of losses; wise and judicious allocation of water across sectors, including the environment and eventually paving the way for turning the Nile as a vehicle for regional integration and promotion of socio-economic development and alleviation of poverty.
The Ministers, concluding their Meeting, emphasized that:
• The common institution of all Eastern Nile countries set up with so much investment in time, money and energy, has been held hostage by the freeze of Egypt and Sudan and its degree of freedom to discharge its responsibilities and deliver results curtailed for four years. The Ministers, therefore, welcome the unfreezing by Sudan and commit themselves to prevent the recurrence of such situations in the future.
• The admission of the Republic of South Sudan into ENSAP/ENTRO marks a phase in Eastern Nile Cooperation whereby cooperation is expanded and deepened. The Ministers register their satisfaction in accepting RSS into the ENSAP family and express their hope that RSS will play constructive role.
• In spite of its continued freezing, ENCOM still reiterates to the sisterly country of Egypt that ENSAP is still open and welcoming and expects their earliest participation.
• They renew their commitment to further Eastern Nile cooperation and have decided to revitalize ENTRO by putting a new Management (Executive Director, Finance and Administration Head, Senior Project Coordinator) in place; by establishing modalities to cover core operation costs on their own; by expediting preparation of investment projects and strengthening the scientific knowledge base (data, information, analytic tools).
• They call on all friends of the Nile to support their renewed effort to advance Eastern Nile cooperation, which they have resolved to carry through, if need be, by their own efforts alone.
• They call upon and invite the private sector and investors within and outside the basin to take part in their investment programs, including through public-private partnerships and to participate in the planned Investment Round Table.
• The Republic of Sudan has offered to hold the next ENCOM meeting in Khartoum, Sudan.
ENCOM has accepted the offer with appreciation. It is to be noted that the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) is a transitional, 10-Member intergovernmental partnership institution guided by a Shared Vision objective: ‘To achieve sustainable socio-economic development through equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin Water resources’. NBI Member States are: Burundi, DR Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, The Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. Eritrea participates as an observer. Launched on 22nd February, 1999 NBI provides the only all- inclusive regional platform for multi stakeholder dialogue, for sharing information, joint planning and management of water and related resources in the Nile Basin.

NBI is governed by a Council of 10 Ministers in charge of Water Affairs in the NBI Member States (Nile-COM), which is the highest decision and policy-making body. The Nile-COM is supported by a Technical Advisory Committee (Nile-TAC), comprised of 20 senior government officials from the partner states.
Professional day to day management of NBI is from three centers – a basin-wide Secretariat, the Nile Basin Initiative Secretariat (Nile-SEC) located in Entebbe, Uganda responsible for overall corporate direction.

The Eastern Nile Technical Region comprising Egypt, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan.
The Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Program Coordination Unit (NELSAP-CU) based in Kigali, Rwanda executes the Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Program (NELSAP)- comprising Burundi, DR Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
In each Member State there is an NBI office, the Focal Point, which coordinates and links trans-boundary NBI, and national plans and activities. At national level, the Ministries in Charge of Water Affairs are the NBI focal point in each Member State.

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NBI core functions:

Basin Cooperation -To facilitate, support and nurture cooperation amongst the Nile Basin countries so as to promote timely and efficient joint actions required for securing benefit from the common Nile Basin water resources
Water Resource Management – To assess, manage and safeguard the water resource base that supports the peoples of the Nile Basin through applying the principles of knowledge-based integrated water resources management to water development planning and assessment
Water Resource Development – To identify, prepare and facilitate investment in Regional/trans-boundary water development projects and programs whilst avoiding negative impacts on the health of the Nile Basin’s resources through applying the principles of integrated water resources management.

http://www.waltainfo.com/index.php/editors-pick/12198-eastern-nile-council-of-ministers-concludes-26th-meeting-holds-next-meeting-in-khartoum-

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US market offers growth potential for Ethiopian-based food manufacturer

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 Anyone who has been to an Ethiopian restaurant will be familiar with injera, a slightly spongy pancake-like flatbread used simultaneously as food, eating utensil and plate. Ethiopian cuisine is traditionally served on injera. Using one’s hand, small pieces of injera are torn and used to grasp the stews and salads for eating. The injera under these stews soaks up the juices and flavours of the foods and, after the stews and salads are gone, this bread is also consumed.

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Hailu Tessema, owner of Mama Fresh Injera

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Mama Fresh Injera, based in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, is said to be one of the largest commercial manufacturers and exporters of fresh-baked injera. The family business was started in 2003 by Hailu Tessema. His wife is production manager and his son is in charge of marketing.

While Mama Fresh has a decent local clientele in Ethiopia, supplying hotels such as the Sheraton and Hilton, the company sees growth opportunities in the export market.

In an interview with How we made it in Africa, Tessema explained that 50% of the company’s output is currently exported to markets such as the US and Europe. He said the Ethiopian diaspora in these countries are the main end-consumers.

The company recently received investment from a network of angel investors supported by US-headquartered advisory firm RENEW. This investment is expected to bankroll the construction of a new export-focused factory that will allow Mama Fresh to triple production.

“We are excited to partner with the US angel investors and RENEW,” said Tessema in a statement. “They bring considerable expertise on the US market, and they will be helping us improve our quality, strengthen our marketing and develop our US distribution.”

Injera is traditionally made from teff, a gluten-free grain. Mama Fresh sources its teff from hundreds of smallholder farmers in Ethiopia.

In addition to injera, the company also intends to research new teff-based gluten-free products.

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A low-cost manufacturing hub

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Ethiopia is shaking off its image as a land of poverty and famine and is today one of Africa’s fastest growing economies. International Monetary Fund figures show that GDP growth remains robust, with the economy expected to expand by around 7.5% this year.

According to a 2012 statement by the World Bank, Ethiopia has ample low-cost labour, giving it a comparative advantage in less-skilled, labour-intensive sectors, and abundant natural resources that can provide valuable inputs for light manufacturing industries serving both domestic and export markets. The country’s resources include cattle for leather; forests for wood; cotton for apparel; and farmland and lakes as inputs for agro-processing industries.

Foreign companies are also looking at Ethiopia as a potential manufacturing destination. Swedish-based fashion retailer H&M is one of the latest global companies to experiment with sourcing its products from Ethiopia, and recently placed test orders for garments with Ethiopian suppliers. Retailers such as Tesco and Walmart reportedly already source some products from Ethiopia.

http://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/us-market-offers-growth-potential-for-ethiopian-based-food-manufacturer/34930/

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Ethiopia supports companies engaged in investment: President

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