Representatives of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry are scheduled to visit Ethiopia in November.

The visit is due to a country focus presentation that members of the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Associations had made late in June to 150 companies in Dubai on the investment opportunities and promotion available in Ethiopia. 

Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry had called upon Dubai companies to invest in Ethiopia, especially in the livestock, agricultural and infrastructure sectors at the briefing.

Eyesuswork Zafu, president of the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce, Mekonen Manyazewal, Minister of Industry, and Hamad Buamim, director general of Dubai Chamber were some of the at the briefing.

Leading investors and businessmen from both Ethiopia and Dubai were also in attendance.  

Over the past seven years the UAE's investments in Ethiopia had not exceeded 800 million dollars due to 'lack of information' about the opportunities available, Tadesse Haile, Minister of Industry, said.

Tadesse told the Dubai business community that there were 74 million hectares of land suitable for the production of beans, chick peas, lentils, maize, wheat, cotton seed, rapeseed, sesame seed, coffee and tea, cotton, feed stocks for bio diesel (castor oil, palm oil) and for ethanol (corn, potatoes, sugarcane and sugar beet).

Tourism is also growing at 10 to 15 percent annually, Eyesuswork said. Ethiopia's biggest exports are coffee, oilseeds, pulses, spices, chat, livestock and meat products, although flower and gold are emerging products too, said Eyesuswork.

Source: Capital