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Game of Doughs

Tesfaye Getnet
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Game of Doughs

City bakeries closed for lowering bread weights

A city wide crackdown on rule breaking bakeries benefiting from government subsidized flour has shut the door on 120 bakeries in the last month.
Most of these bakeries are located in Addis Ketema, Gullele, Arada and Kirkos Sub Cities. The Addis Ababa Trade Bureau says the closed bakeries purchased wheat flour for 796 birr per quintal and resold the flour for up to 1,800 birr. Then they turn around and make bread with less flour so that customers who think they are paying for 100 grams of bread for 1.30 birr actually were buying as little as 60 grams of bread for that price.
Bread pieces that were 200 and 300 grams were also intentionally reduced up to 80 grams during the baking process.
Currently over 1,500 bakeries get flour subsidies in Addis Ababa thorough 44 wheat flour companies working on the outskirts of Addis Ababa.
Kashaun Abera, Trade Inspection Head at the Bureau told Capital that lowering weight is unacceptable.
“Bread is one of the basic consumer needs for our meals. The government understands this and has been subsidizing wheat to help the consumer. Now some bakeries are lowering bread weights and selling the extra flour instead of using it for bread. This is completely wrong and we will close these bakeries down.”
Bakeries owners argue that the government should revise the price of bread instead of rushing to shut down the bakeries.
An anonymous bakery owner said “I just need to tell you that we are being pressured by costs since bakeries are in the middle of the value chain. All the costs are going up, from raw materials we use, spare parts and everything they are going up.”
“This is because we have not been able to cope with the current economic reality. You cannot just raise your price to make a profit because consumers are not ready to accept that. If you produce at the best quality, you cannot make any profit. You have to lower the quality, that is, if at all, your consumers will accept the product,” the owner said.
Bakeries are getting 120,929 quintals of flour from the 44 wheat flour factories every month.
The government sells the wheat to flour companies at 500 birr per quintal and flour companies sell the flour to the bakeries at 796.25 birr per quintal.

Revisiting the history of the Silk Road and the Roman route

Alazar Kebede
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Scores of history books recorded that the Silk Road was a network of trade routes connecting the East and the West in ancient and Medieval times. The term is used for both overland routes and those that are marine. The Silk Road involved three continents: Europe, Africa and Asia.
In addition to silk, a wide range of other goods was traded along the Silk Road, and the network was also important for migrants and travellers, and for the spread of religion, philosophy, science, technology, and artistic ideals. The Silk Road had a significant impact on the lands through which the routes passed, and the trade played a significant role in the development of towns and cities along the Silk Road routes.
Many merchants along the Silk Road were involved in relay trade, where an item would change owners many times and travel a little bit with each one of them before reaching its final buyer. It seems to have been highly unusual for any individual merchant to travel all the way between China and Europe or Northern Africa. Instead, various merchants specialized in transporting goods through various sections of the Silk Road.
Perhaps the most lasting legacy of the Silk Roads has been their role in bringing cultures and peoples in contact with each other, and facilitating exchange between them. On a practical level, merchants had to learn the languages and customs of the countries they travelled through, in order to negotiate successfully. Cultural interaction was a vital aspect of material exchange. Moreover, many travellers ventured onto the Silk Roads in order to partake in this process of intellectual and cultural exchange that was taking place in cities along the routes.
Knowledge about science, arts and literature, as well as crafts and technologies was shared across the Silk Roads, and in this way, languages, religions and cultures developed and influenced each other. One of the most famous technical advances to have been propagated worldwide by the Silk Roads was the technique of making paper, as well as the development of printing press technology. Similarly, irrigation systems across Central Asia share features that were spread by travellers who not only carried their own cultural knowledge, but also absorbed that of the societies in which they found themselves.
According to several historical accounts, indeed, the man who is often credited with founding the Silk Roads by opening up the first route from China to the West in the 2nd century BC, General Zhang Qian, was on a diplomatic mission rather than a trading expedition. Sent to the West in 139 BC by the Han Emperor Wudi to ensure alliances against the Xiongnu, the hereditary enemies of the Chinese, Zhang Qian was captured and imprisoned by them. Thirteen years later he escaped and made his way back to China. Pleased with the wealth of detail and accuracy of his reports, the emperor sent Zhang Qian on another mission in 119 BC to visit several neighbouring peoples, establishing early routes from China to Central Asia.
Despite all these, some historian seriously argued that the Silk Road’s historical importance has been vastly exaggerated. It was the sea that was the most important link between east and west. There must be a thousand books about the Silk Road. But as its latest biographer Valerie Hansen writes: “The ‘road’ was not an actual ‘road’ but a stretch of shifting, unmarked paths across massive expanses of deserts and mountains. The quantity of cargo transported along these treacherous routes was small. The most active parts were within central Asia and to Persia and Arabia. In terms of volume of long distance trade, the sea has always been of vastly greater importance. According to one Roman estimate, it was twenty-seven times more expensive to move goods by land than by water. In addition, land routes were more susceptible to wars and disorder. As for the so-called Silk Road silk arriving in Rome most likely came either from central Asia or India, not China”.
Evidence of some trade between the Mediterranean, Egypt, the Gulf, India and eastward can be traced way back before the current era. But it was Rome’s conquest of Egypt that led to development of massive trade with India, with an estimated hundred ships a year with cargo capacity of 200 tons or more leaving the Roman red sea ports for Africa and India. But this was not high value goods. Rome’s imports included special types of marble as well as spices, gems and other luxuries. Wine and glass were leading exports. The trade generated much tax revenue for the Roman treasury but a trade deficit also drained the empire of silver. Indian traders at the time were already familiar with the Malay peninsula and Sumatra to the east, known as the land of gold, Suvarnabhumi in Sanskrit or Chryse to the Greek traders.
A first century document written in Greek referred to very large ships trading between India and Chryse. Ptolemy’s second century map, which served as the West’s main source of geography for the next 1300 years, clearly denoted the peninsula and some locations on it. Romans also noted sailing “rafts,” a reference to the outrigger vessels common throughout the archipelago, and that the boats of the region were sewn in which the planks joined together with fibers.
History well recorded the fact that the first Roman known to have reached China arrived in 166 CE almost certainly by sea as he brought gifts of rhino horn and ivory. Another arrived by sea in 226 CE near Haiphong, Vietnam, then under Chinese rule and met the emperor in Nanjing. Most likely they came by sea, from India to the peninsula, transited across it by land, and then proceeded via ports at the Mekong mouth and Vietnamese coast.
By then, Indian traders had long been bringing Hinduism, Buddhism and writing to the peninsula, and then on to Sumatra, Java, Cambodia and the central and southern coasts of Vietnam. They also brought kingship ideas which helped state development. Among the first of those was Funan on the Mekong delta whose power extended to the northern part of the peninsula. A third century Chinese envoy described its capital as a walled city with palaces and it used Indian style writing and gold and silver as currency.
Unlike the Indian-Roman trade there are no documents which give an approximation of the size of trade. But it certainly included bulkier items such as aromatic woods, metals and metal products as well as spice, incense, ivory and textiles – Indian cotton as well as Chinese silk, even horses. China was the biggest single market, but the Chinese merchants themselves did not normally venture south. The dangers outweighed the profits if the foreigners would come to them. If they did so, it would have been on the ships.
Rome’s trade with the east declined with the empire. Meanwhile in the east it picked up driven, in part, by the development of direct sailing from India to Sumatra, Java and China via the Melaka strait. This was highly seasonal, driven by the monsoon shift from northeast in winter to southwest. This gave huge importance to the ports on the east Sumatran and north Java coasts as intermediaries. For most of the next thousand years between them they were the most important players in the seas between India and China.

Starting up possibilities

Dawit Astatike
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Starting up possibilities

Karman Elahian is Chairman of Silicon Valley based Global Innovation Catalyst, an advisory services firm connecting countries in the AMENA Asia, Middle East and North Africa) region. He co founded a multi-billion USD tech company in the US. He defines himself as an innovation catalyst, philanthropist, entrepreneur without borders and a global venture capitalist. In 2016, he was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, an American award founded by the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations (NECO), that pays homage to the immigrant experience and the contributions made to America by immigrants and their children. The chairman and co founder of Global Innovation Catalyst, Elahain was here in Addis on his first visit. He met with Ethiopian government and African Union officials to talk about creating 10 million tech based jobs in Africa. Capital had a chance to talk to him during his stay about his ambitious project. Excerpts;

 

Capital: Can you tell us about yourself and your background?
Elahian: I left my native country, Iran, at the age of 18 for the United States. Serendipitously, I attended the University of Utah, where computer graphics was invented in the late 60s and was the playground of the founders of Pixar, Adobe, Attari and Silicon Graphics in the early 70s. By the age of 22, I had two Bachelors and a Masters degree.
I then joined Hewlett Packard (Palo Alto) in corporate engineering, and while working as a design automation software engineer, I was accepted by Stanford University, HP-Stanford Honors program in Integrated Circuit (chip) design. I designed a chip that didn’t work and my professor told me I was a poor engineer. Unfazed, I proposed to lead a new program at HP, the first of its kind in the industry, to use computer graphics in the development of Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) software to help chip engineers. Management rejected my idea, they told me I was too young and inexperienced to lead a project of my own. Consequently, I left the company with four of my colleagues to launch my own company.

Capital: You have founded or co-founded Tech companies that have gone to IPOs and are valued in Billions of Dollars. Can you tell us a little bit about the companies you founded and their stages now?
Elahian: At the age of 27, I co-founded CAE Systems. Within 3 years, it was acquired by Tektronix for USD75M. At the age of 30, I co-founded Cirrus Logic, the leading fables chip company which had its IPO valued at USD150M in less than 5 years. Its revenue grew to over USD 1B within 10 years of its founding and its market cap reached over USD 3.5B.
And again I co-founded Momenta in 1989, where we created the leading touch sensitive tablet and pen product: Momenta Computer which was preceding the iPad by 18 years. My heady success clouded my decisions. Shipping an unfinished product and optimistic sales projections led to me being fired by the board of directors on April 1, 1992 (I thought that it was an April fools joke.). Not knowing what to do next, I retreated from business and I spent the next year traveling the world, studying various languages, cultures and religions. What became obvious to me was that in every country, people were often so proud of their heritage and religion, that they believed they were special and the chosen ones.

Capital: You have been well known for your philanthropy and empowering refugees and disadvantaged people throughout your life. Can you tell us the story of how you opened an ICT training centre in a refugee camp in Africa 20 years ago.
Elahian: My wife and best friend, Zohre and I married young. We share a passion for philanthropy and making a difference in this world. Together, we have supported a multitude of projects and organizations through the Global Catalyst Foundation (its mission supports projects to improve education, eradicate poverty, promote social tolerance, and celebrate diversity).
People ask me why I care so much about making a difference in the world. The reality is that the impact of war and violence on the last two generations of our families have led us to believe that if we can empower people through the use of the Internet and communication technologies, we have a genuine chance to give this generation and the generations of the future the knowledge to appreciate and celebrate our differences. Ultimately, my dream is a world without war. It is the only way to bend the arc of human civilization toward unification.

Capital: How would you describe your worldview?
Elahian: you’ll find that people are fundamentally the same. Once you set aside the biases of nationality and religion I came away with the belief that we could use technology to empower people to experience what I had learned. This belief created the three guiding principles that have shaped my life:
(1) Create new technologies that bring people together,
(2) Create new global companies with activities in many different countries that motivate people to work together, and
(3) Create global foundations that apply ICT to improve education, reduce poverty and promote tolerance.

Capital: What motivated you to visit to Ethiopia, who is advising you about Ethiopia?
Elahian: It is Zekarias, from Ibex Frontier Investment Advisory. He advised me to come to Ethiopia for the first time and facilitate and arrange everything to meet Ministers of Innovation Getahun Mekuria and officials from AU to have a discussion on creating tech drive job opportunities that is helping us, advising us, in existing opportunities and introducing us to the relevant people.

Capital: Your Company has a bold vision to create innovation jobs across the world? Tell us a bit about it.
Elahian: Global innovation catalyst has a bold plan to create more than 10 million innovation jobs worldwide in the next 10 years, out of which 5Million goes to Africa.

Capital: In your meeting with Innovation Minster what was the core of your discussion?
Elahian: In my meeting with Innovation Minster Getahun, we had a good discussion on how Global innovation catalyst will do with Ethiopian government and tasks to do in partnership in order to implement our companies programme . For Ethiopia, Global Innovation Catalyst is glad to decide to announced that half million tech drive job opportunities of the 5Million jobs allocated to Africa. This is about 10% of Africa’s allocation which Ethiopia gets the highest share from this in as our discussion with the ministry of innovation, The opportunities will be given primarily for university graduates to engage in tech based employment opportunities by providing training and financial support.

Capital: Can you tell us how you plan to implement the initiatives?
Elahian: Global innovation Catalyst is closely working with the UN, World Bank Group and universities the training is given in collaboration with Stanford University.

Capital: What does Your Company currently does with regards to transforming innovations?
Elahain: We advise various governments on the needed transition from fossil based economies to sustainable innovation economies. Our approach: an economy that creates transformative innovation and cultivates entrepreneurship can drive large-scale job growth and achieve sustainable economic prosperity. Innovation and entrepreneurship can emerge only if all elements of an innovation ecosystem are in place. We connect countries in the Asia, Middle East, African regions to the resources needed to stimulate job creation, high-tech entrepreneurship, and innovation-focused economic growth.

Capital: Any outstanding startup that impressed you during your visit to Ethiopia?
Elahain: The Blue Moon Incubators really impressed me and gives hopes to Ethiopia.

Fill it up with dirt

Anteneh Aklilu
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Fill it up with dirt
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