As part of TDB’s Covid-19 Emergency Response Programme (CERP), the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank (TDB) donated 160,000 Made-in-Ethiopia masks to Ethiopian healthcare workers in collaboration with the Ministry of Health.

In view of supporting Ethiopian business and employment during these difficult times, TDB procured the masks from Everest Apparel Ethiopia S.C. Everest Textiles’ garment factory located in Hawassa Industrial Park employs 2,000 workers.

Ahmed Shide, Minister of Finance and Ethiopia’s shareholder representative on the TDB Board of Governors handed over the masks during a ceremony which took place on July 8 to Lia Tadesse, Minister of Health.

“We are pleased that TDB purchased these PPE materials from a well-regarded factory in the Hawassa Industrial Park here in Ethiopia, supporting local industry and jobs” said Ahmed Shide. “We trust that this PPE contribution to the Ministry of Health, which is at the forefront of Ethiopia’s fight against the pandemic, will be helpful in the very important preventive measures that we are all mobilizing.”

TDB President and Chief Executive Admassu Tadesse said that “to boost our Member States’ efforts in mitigating the effects of the Covid-19 crisis, TDB has launched CERP via which essential supplies are procured mostly from regional factories, to address healthcare sector imperatives, while supporting local private sector and employment, including of women and youth. With this donation, we are pleased to team-up with Ethiopian public and private sector partners – Everest Apparel Ethiopia, Industrial Parks Development Corporation, Hawassa Industrial Park, Ministry of Health, and others – to help protect healthcare workers and make sure that the system continues to have the capacity to treat everyone in need, whether Covid-19 patients or others”.

Roger Yeh, President of the Everest Textile Group also said “with the vision to propel the apparel manufacturing industry of Ethiopia onto the global stage, Everest brought innovation as a global sport apparel brand partner to the country. I believe that supply chains are in the process of changing globally and that Ethiopia will become an important hub worldwide for the manufacturing of apparel. We are pleased to cooperate with TDB in the fight against Covid-19 in Ethiopia and look forward to further engagements with the Bank in the future.”

Including during the pandemic, TDB continues to support Ethiopian imports of vital commodities such as wheat and fertilizers, to ensure that the country continues enhancing productivity levels in agriculture, supporting employment, and ensuring food security, This is even more critical now, as large international correspondent banks are pulling-out of African markets.

The government has set to suspend the import of edible oil as of the beginning of Ethiopian New Year after local pressers are at a final stage to commence massive production.

Eshete Assfaw, State Minister of Ministry of Trade and Industry (MoTI), told Capital that under the government’s plan as of October 10 the country will fully stop oil import.

“Until the end of September we will continue to import the product, and in this period local pressers will finalize their preparation with the direct support of the government,” he added.

He reminded that the government conducted frequent meetings with potential big producers to commence their operation as soon as possible. “We have conducted several discussions and even directly visited the sites that are located in eastern Ethiopia and Amhara region,” he says “we want to see a crucial shift on the sector.”

Early this week Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said that the government is working to substitute the import of basic commodities like wheat and edible oil by local production. He said that the wheat production that expanded in these two years will enable the government to stop the import of wheat fully that consume close to a billion dollar every year.

At the same time he said that the local oil producers that are at the final stage of the project will enable the country to replace the import by local production.

Sources told Capital that few weeks ago the government has approved foreign currency for pressers to import crude oil.

“Currently the country imports 40 million liters of edible oil every month, while in our evaluation local producers will commence operation as of August and some of them will commence operation until September,” Eshete said.

Starting from August foreign currency that is now allocated for the import of final product will be shifted to producers, according to the State Minister.

Besides ShemuPLc, which is located in Dire Dawa, industries are being constructed in Bure and Debremarqos by Belayneh Kinde and WorkquAytenew that does have a huge capacity that will use local oilseeds and import crude oil as input. East Africa Holding, Hamaressa Presser, located in Harar is also the other promising industry.

“Because of the current status we are confident that the import of final product will be fully suspended as of October 10,” Eshete underlined.

The country allocates about half a billion dollar for oil import per annum.