The Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority has implemented a ban on Chinese coffee companies from entering into contracts, citing their failure to make payments to coffee exporters and resulting in the loss of foreign currency earnings for the country’s coffee sector.
According to the authority, two companies that were purchasing coffee from Ethiopian exporters and supplying it to the Chinese market had received coffee but had not made the necessary payments. LEBUNNA TRADING DMMC, which had an agreement to supply value-added coffees to China, repeatedly failed to make payments despite multiple requests, causing financial difficulties for exporters and impacting the country’s foreign currency earnings.
Ethiopian coffee has played a significant role in the rapid growth of China’s economy. As a result, both foreign and domestic organizations have shown great interest in engaging with the sector. China’s annual coffee consumption has been growing at an average rate of over 15 percent in the past decade, compared to the global coffee consumption growth rate of 2.2 percent.
In a letter dated February 1, 2024, from the Coffee and Tea Authority to the Ethiopian Coffee Exporters Association, it was revealed that LEBUNNA TRADING DMMC had changed its name to SINOCHAM HEBEI CORPORATION and was still purchasing coffee without making payments. The extent of the financial losses incurred was not disclosed, but the authority stated that it was working with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese Embassy in Ethiopia to address the issue.
LEBUNNA, an international company that invested in Ethiopia’s coffee sector in 2014, currently holds over 55 percent of the country’s coffee market share in China.
The second company mentioned in the Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority’s complaint is SINOCHAM HEBEI CORPORATION, a large Chinese company managed by the government. SINOCHAM, established 50 years ago, is primarily engaged in chemical ore, iron ore, and material businesses.
The authority, empowered by Decree No. 1051/2009 and Rule No. 433/2011, has the legal authority to monitor and enforce contracts with foreign buyers or exporters and take appropriate action if contractual obligations are not met.
In light of these issues, the authority has instructed the Ethiopian Coffee Exporters Association not to enter into any contracts with organizations that have hindered the country’s foreign currency earnings until the National Bank of Ethiopia resolves the problem.
Ethiopia is the largest coffee producer in Africa and the fifth-largest exporter of Arabica coffee globally. Coffee is a major source of export income, accounting for 30-35 percent of the country’s total export revenue. The country currently has over 400 active coffee exporters.
The Ministry of Transport and Logistics (MoTL) is in the process of drafting a directive to allow private sector involvement in the dry port scheme as part of efforts to liberalize the logistics industry. However, logistics actors have raised concerns, stating that the proposed directive fails to consider the practical realities on the ground.
During a meeting held on January 30 at the Ethiopian Maritime Authority’s premises, logistics actors reviewed the draft paper, which outlined expectations of private sector investment from both domestic and foreign businesses. The draft directive specified that private sector participation would be limited to a special terminal.
According to Article 7 of Part 3 of the draft directive, the special terminal would encompass an intermodal terminal, a vehicle terminal, a dry bulk cargo terminal, a container terminal, and a break bulk terminal. Additionally, logistics park and logistics hub services were included in the directive, although investors were required to invest specifically in the designated special terminals.
The directive outlined specific land and infrastructure requirements for each type of terminal. For example, the container terminal necessitated the construction of three warehouses on 2.5 hectares of land, with half of the area asphalted. The dry bulk freight terminal required two hectares of land, with 0.25 hectares asphalt concrete and three warehouses on a one-hectare plot. Similar specifications were provided for the break bulk freight terminal, vehicle terminal, and intermodal terminal.
Investment in a logistics park required a 33-hectare plot of land, with nine hectares developed, including three hectares of asphalted facilities. Similarly, an 80-hectare area was allocated for the logistics hub, with 34 hectares of asphalt concrete development to cater to various types of cargo.
The draft directive also outlined the equipment requirements for each terminal, including reach stackers, blowing machines, terminal tractors, forklifts, and gantries. It specified that half of the machines could be leased, except for rail-mounted and rubber-tiered gantries.
Despite the government’s intentions to liberalize the logistics industry, local logistics actors expressed dissatisfaction with the proposed directive during the conference. They argued that the directive did not consider the challenges faced by logistics businesses in Ethiopia, particularly in acquiring the specified land.
Logistics players highlighted the difficulty in accessing 5,000 to 10,000 square meters of land for warehouse construction, stating that the directive did not account for the capabilities of local logistics actors. They suggested that the directive might be more feasible for foreign investors rather than local businesses, unless through joint ventures.
Local logistics players expressed concerns that failure to address these issues could lead to the dominance of foreign investors in the industry. They emphasized the gradual development of capacity to meet the sector’s demands.
Currently, dry ports in Ethiopia are owned and operated by Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics, a state-owned logistics company with a monopoly on dry ports for multimodal transport services since 2009.
Only a couple of centuries back, the word ‘education’ was synonymous with ‘knowledge’, i.e., if a person was educated then it was assumed he/she was also broadly knowledgeable or somewhat enlightened. This was when industrial capitalism or industrialization was still at bay. Once intensive commodity production (commodification) was unleashed on a world scale, education became universal and its utilitarian tenets paramount! As the surreal/grotesque alienation associated with commodification became a dominant feature of human life, it started to undermine the spirit of enlightenment, thereby weakening the essence of genuine liberating progress.
The prevailing nature debasing/dehumanizing economic system, which is based on the superficial notion of exchange value, (with its associated profits) is not being interrogated on the critical measures of life and its sustenance. Resource wastages, environmental degradation, polarization within and between countries leading to destabilization, etc., are all consequences of a regime of curtailed knowledge, i.e., knowledge oriented only to short-term objectives. The world system is such that important things in life are purposely relegated to the backburner, if they don’t support dominant ideology, while frivolous matters are to be obsessed ad infinitum! The critical tool needed to differentiate the above two, is systemically diluted and if need be thrown out of the window. In the current capitalist globalization, it is not critical knowledge and its application to better the general welfare of society that is in demand, but rather skills with exchange values. Skills to sustain and perpetuate the unsustainable world system are very much in demand and these vocations are rewarded aplenty!
To highlight the situation, it is suffice to mention few obvious and ridiculous examples of our world system. A nurse or a teacher makes hardly enough money to get by, while a tax lawyer whose proficiency is to effectively manipulate existing tax laws (so that his/her employer will avoid paying taxes) is rewarded immensely and this holds true all over the world. A movie star (hardly an actor) and sports celebrities make millions, while law enforcement officers (police, judges, etc.,) have a hard time making ends meet. In our world system, it seems, the more frivolous the occupation, the more the monetary/other rewards. If global bankers commit illegal acts and derail the world economy to suit their selfish interests, they don’t go to jail; rather they get rewarded with millions and at times even billions of dollars. The system now acknowledges that some people are way above the law to be persecuted and can do whatever they want with impunity. Welcome to the last phase of the crumbling world order, where the sheeple is being provoked to ignite a world revolution!
No wonder the youth is skeptical about the value of modern education, particularly as is currently administered by the loyal representatives of the merchant class. This situation is notoriously prevalent in the advanced industrial countries of the west. Obviously, the ruling entities want ‘unthinking’ drones to come out of the assembly line (universities, etc.) without much wherewithal about the art of inquisitiveness. After all, the system needs them only as workers (both mental and physical) as well as consumers, not as conscious producers and patrons. The way global economic production is organized, it will be difficult to generate mass/sufficient employment with adequate remuneration. It seems, the assembly line education system can no longer guarantee return on investment, to use the lingua of the system. In places like the United States, many graduates can hardly find well-paying jobs to pay/service their loans. Since the only way one can exit this debt servitude is via verifiable death, (at least in the US) debt slavery might be a preferred existence compared to freedom by death!
To those brave souls, who do not bother much about credentials or some kind of decorated parchments from some God forsaken place, there is now an opportunity to do some serious learning using modern informatics. Only few skills actually need physical presence for instructional purposes, like surgery, etc. Be that as it may the future of formal education as we know it, might not be rosy, to say the least! As we said above, the existing system of formal education is hardly liberating, in fact it is actually enslaving. It restricts critical investigation on the nature of our current civilization. This can be verified just by looking at the activities of the majority of the world’s intellectuals. Many of these eggheads in the ivory towers are comfortable with the destructive ambition of the world system and have literally refused to challenge it, save very few activist intellectuals, like Samir Amin (Third World Forum), Chomsky (MIT), Hanson (NASA), Wallerstein (Yale), Hudson & Black, (University of Missouri-Kansas City), Louis Proceyt (Columbia), Graeber (Stanford), etc. Admitted or not, the prevailing unwarranted docility on the part of intellectuals has allowed global psychopaths to destroy, not only nations, but also life and life support systems, for the temporal and ethereal notion of profit.
As a result of misguided learning, humanity, for the most part, has lost the natural art of survival and is blindly/rapidly marching towards the abyss, all because of its stupid adherence to the logic of incessant commodification (consumerism.) If truth be told, the current infatuation with mercantilist life (all across the world) can neither bring internal/individual contentment/satisfaction, nor will it deliver sanity to the human community! But the core intellectuals that can potentially interrogate/elaborate the prevailing system’s shortcomings and propose alternatives are sleeping on the wheels, as they say! In 1967, in a piece entitled The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Noam Chomsky wrote the following: It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies. This, at least, may seem enough of a truism to pass over without comment. Not so, however. For the modern intellectual, it is not at all obvious.
Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma will return to the scene of his world indoor 3000m record when he competes at the Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais in Lievin, France, on 10 February.
The multiple world and Olympic 3000m steeplechase medallist clocked 7:23.81 at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting last year to break the previous world record of 7:24.90 set by Daniel Komen in 1998. He went on to improve the world 3000m steeplechase record in Paris in June, running 7:52.11.
Now Girma gets ready to race at the Arena Stade Couvert once again, six days after he competes at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston, where he will also run the 3000m.
Girma is the second athlete named for this year’s Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais, following the announcement of USA’s Olympic and world pole vault champion Katie Moon.
This year’s World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold season kicks off in Astana on 27 January and the fields for the men’s and women’s 60m hurdles there have recently been announced.
Britain’s 2018 world indoor champion Andrew Pozzi is among the entries for the men’s event, and he will be joined by athletes including Cuba’s Roger Iribarne, Milan Trajkovic of Cyprus and Yaqoub Al-Youha of Kuwait.
In the women’s event, USA’s two-time world indoor champion and 2019 world 100m hurdles gold medallist Nia Ali features in a field including 2022 world 100m hurdles champion Tobi Amusan, USA’s Tia Jones and Alaysha Johnson, and Ireland’s Sarah Lavin.
Lemecha Girma broke Daniel Komen’s long-standing world indoor record in the men’s 3000 meters, clocking 7:23.81 after a great head-to-head clash against world 1500m bronze medallist Mohamed Katir from Spain. Komen clocked 7:24.98 in Budapest in 1998. Girma set the 11th world record in the history of the Lièvin meeting.
