The Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration calls up on oilseed and pulse businesses exporting to China to be registered.
The new requirements come into effect on 1 January 2022. Businesses exporting to China may need to apply to be registered and ensure their labeling is compliant well in advance of the requirements coming into effect.
According to the letter the ministry calls exporters which have their own processing facilities including conducting farming, manufacturing, storage required standards registration number to get a permit.
The new requirements cover the registration of overseas food manufacturing, processing, and storage businesses. They also set out labeling requirements. The requirements apply to a broad range of food products.
Previously undisclosed amount of oilseeds that was transported to China has changed its voyage back to the country due to latest new law imposed by the most populous nation in the world and major trading partner of Ethiopia.
On his performance report that Gebremeskel Chala presented on Tuesday April 5 at the parliament said that as per the declaration of China issued late last year agricultural products that are entered into its border from different countries should have pass the requirement that it introduced.
He said that the declaration of the fast growing economy country has designed agricultural commodities like oilseeds and pulses, which are Ethiopia’s major export commodities to China, exporters should have their own processing facilities and required standards registration number to get a permit.
“We have significant number of exporters, while those who meet the criteria are very few. Those who have their own processing facilities are not more than 40,” he explained.
“Without our knowledge about the new standard set by the Far East country sesame seed has been started its voyage to China, however lately we have got the new declaration due to that the consignment is now returning back to Ethiopia,” he added what was happened on Ethiopian sesame seed export in related with the new declaring of China.
According to Gebremeskel, the registration process for exporters that shall align with the precondition is doing and others who do not have the capacity to meet the criteria may use the registration number of other exporters.
On his eight month report of the 2021/22 budget year Gebremeskel said that because of the new import standard that has become in effect in December last year the volume of sesame seeds, which is one of the major export earning agricultural commodity for the country and the major destination for the Ethiopian seeds is China, exported to the second biggest economy in the world has declined by 74 in volume for January 2022 only.
“The volume has declined by 3,477 tons and in terms of value it has reduced by 73 percent in the month of January compared with the same period of last year,” he said.
The Order imposes a new labeling requirement for all food products imported into China to include the registration number on the label of the inner and outer packaging of the food products, which China Customs would examine and verify at the border prior to granting customs clearance.
Ministry calls on exporters to register
EHPEA holds event to flourish its sector
The Ethiopian Horticulture Producer Exporters Association (EHPEA) hosts a sectoral promotion event to revamp the sector’s potential.
During the promotional conference held at the Inter Luxury Hotel on Thursday, April 28, the federal and regional investment officials turns to highlight the potential the country has in horticulture and other agricultural investments, whilst potential investors, ambassadors and other members of the diplomatic community sat in attended.
At the conference representatives of the Ethiopian Investment Commission and Ministry of Agriculture explained the government’s readiness to tap the sector investment potential. They elaborated that the government is creating an additional conducive environment for investors to invest in Ethiopia.
Regional investment bureau officials gave an inside view of the potential that the country has for the sector investment and equally responded to the questions raised by participants.
Tewodros Zewdie, Executive Director of EHPEA, said that although it is a little over a decade since Ethiopia started an organized endeavor to have a modern horticulture export industry; the sub-sector has shown quite glittering and exponential growth in the last ten years.
He added that since 2004, the Ethiopian horticulture export has skyrocketed by about 25-fold to become one of the top three hard currency generators from export and second in agricultural export only to coffee.
Tewodros added that the industry continues to be very dynamic, where growers are constantly improving sustainability through the adoption of environmentally friendly technologies and energy-efficient systems.
“Ethiopia has both competitive and comparative advantages for the production and export of horticulture produce as the cost of doing business is cheaper in comparison with other countries,” he said in his opening remark at the conference by adding energy cost is among the cheapest in the world and suitable climatic condition in the country besides its proximity for global market and strong logistics scheme like the wide destination of Ethiopian Airlines.
DECLINING ENTREPRENEURIAL DYNAMICS
We need to rethink ‘entrepreneurship’, particularly within the context of developing countries, where homegrown entrepreneurship is still a potential not an actuality, despite the numbing rhetoric to the contrary! If truth be told, the world driven by monopoly capital hardly allows national bourgeoisie to emerge in the various other nation states. The only way to ameliorate this deficiency, if it is at all possible in the current scenario, is to try to leverage the ‘developmentalist state’ to the full extent. To bring about some kind of balance in the lopsided global market, the traditional anti market, the state, must be revitalized in ways that might sound radical, at least from the point of view of reigning neoliberalism!
The global regime of monopoly capital, facilitated by the strong states of the industrially advanced economies, has effectively killed entrepreneurship not only in the developing countries but all across the globe. What now passes for entrepreneurship is usually some kind of crony capitalism, explicitly favoring the power connected at the expense of creative and dynamic entrepreneurial dynamism! In many parts of Africa, it is mostly state supported enterprises, whether traditional parastatals (government) or paraparties (political parties) or the multitude of connected individuals directly/indirectly fronting for the power that be, that seem to be fully engaged in large scale economic/business activities. The current global scenario is such that; small time operators don’t have a fighting chance to make it to the big league, unless they have either the backing of the national state or are a mere appendage of transnational/monopoly capital. The rhetoric or even the actual presence of small enterprises in an economy is just to give a semblance of dynamic market activities, a charade that is now fast unraveling!
The world of the rich (OECD) is undergoing tumulus political change, mostly due to polarization brought about by the entrenched regime of crony capitalism! In this inequality perpetuating machine/scheme, certain institutions play prominent role. For instance the finance sector, without a doubt, is one of the main culprits that is fostering all-round injustice, hence instability across the planet, to say nothing about its callous destruction of the natural world! Even though the unsustainability and undesirability of the current global economic regime is very clear to the sheeple, politicos of nation states are refusing to look at options, which might possibly pacify the excessive greed that is causing untold destruction, both in the world of humans and nature. The political tumult we are witnessing in the West is a manifestation of creeping insurrection that will probably engulf all of us, sooner than later. We believe the best option for incumbent states is to boldly and honestly address existing and impending problems in collaboration with their respective sheeple! ‘Kicking the can down’ might not do the trick any more. To this end, the commanding heights of a country’s economy must be under the common will of the sheeple and not with the ever-conniving stealing oligarchs. In this context, all financial institutions must be more than regulated, as their business is dealing with one of the main ‘Commons’ (of societies), just like the water we drink, the air we breathe, etc. For example, the ‘Birr’ is our common currency and it should not be dispensed freely to the selected few under various disguise, (so that the connected can convert the allotted money into new wealth, mostly by disfranchising the old, rather than create new ones on their own) while the majority has to sweat for it.
In addition to efforts to salvage aspects of the broader economy, the whole ‘social machinery’ must also be redirected to more ‘value oriented objectives’. Making money only for the sake of making money is a meaningless pursuit, at least to those with some grain matter upstairs. Here is an extract about money from once the richest man on earth. Warren Buffett is a simple man, with just one caveat and is the subject of an HBO documentary, titled Becoming Warren Buffett, that explores his lesser-known personal life. But his daughter Susie Buffett warns not to expect anything extravagant from the successful Berkshire Hathaway investor. ‘He’s pretty boring – it’s just not what people expect,” Susie tells PEOPLE of the most surprising thing about her dad. “I think it’s also probably surprising to people that the money doesn’t matter to him. He made the money sort of by accident because he was really good at doing what he loved, and when you do that particular thing really well, you end up with a whole bunch of money. But it’s really true that he does not care about having a bunch of money. Buffett echoed his oldest child’s sentiments at the film’s premiere, telling PEOPLE that it’s not that he’s frugal, he just doesn’t think spending money will make him happier than enjoying the simple things in life.’ I buy everything I want in life,” Buffett said. “Would 10 homes make me more happy? Possessions possess you at a point. I don’t like a $100 meal as well as a hamburger from McDonald’s. That’s the way I’m put together, I don’t equate the amount I spend with the enjoyment I’m going to get from something.’
Money is only a means and not an end onto itself. Societal relations must not only hinge on this superficial construct, excessively propelled by un-tempered greed of late modernity. Unfortunately, distorted attitude towards money has now come to dominate public life in many of the traditional societies of Africa, Ethiopia not excepted! A country that has sacrificed a whole lot to bring about an ethical and just society (The Great Ethiopian Revolution of 1974) is now wallowing in a cesspool of narcissistic greed, corruption and widespread injustice, facilitated by degenerate polity in partnership within notorious oligarchs, both foreign and locals! As a result of this ill spawning taking place throughout all the regions of Ethiopia, resistance in form of mass uprisings seem to become the order of the day. We sincerely believe certain things are way beyond repair in Ethiopia and they must be completely dismantled with a view to effect a more transparent and equitable governance. Trying to sweep all major problems (along with the sheeple’s grievances) under the rug might not cut it anymore!
