Export earnings boom in final quarters

The export earnings of the Ethiopian industry sector spikes by a third in the first 10 months of the budget year in comparison to similar periods of last year.
In his report to parliament on Thursday June 16, Melaku Alebel, Minister of Industry (MoI), said that the country secured USD 418 million in the first eight months of the 2021/22 budget year that has an increment of 32.5 percent when compared with the same period of last year.
In the 2020/21 budget year, within the first ten months the country was able to secure USD 315 million from industrial commodity export.
Despite the sector performance bagging USD 102 million more this period, it was 16 percent short when compared to its projection.
MoI had set a target to attain almost half a billion dollar from the industry sector. Even though the country is under pressure by some global market alternatives like AGOA, the textile and leather industries have been able to contribute to the sector’s hard currency earnings. The textile and garment industry contributed USD 153 million and stood atop in the foreign currency earnings followed by the meat and dairy sector which attracted USD 98 million.
The foods and beverage sector also contributed about USD 94 million in the stated period.
Regarding import substitution, MoI had targeted USD 2.2 billion worth of commodities to be covered by local production. However, it attained 85 percent by substituting USD 1.89 billion.
Melaku said that in the stated period MoI targeted to cut the import of USD 105.4 million leather and leather goods and enabled to replace USD 145 million worth or 137 percent of the projection by local production.
Despite the country having an ample position in the leather industry, it losses hundreds of millions of dollar every year so as to import finished leather goods. It has also allocated significant amount of foreign currency for the import of input and accessories for the sector.
In the manufacturing technology and engineering sub sector, the Ministry has targeted to substitute at least USD 242 million and to this end was able to achieve 77 percent.
Similarly, USD 472 million worth of chemical and construction sector imports have been substituted by local production.
Likewise, the food and beverage sub sector was able to substitute USD 1.09 billion worth of import from the projected USD 1.4 billion. From this sub sector edible import is one of the major hard currency consumers.