The first digital video disc (DVD) manufacturing plant in Ethiopia was officially opened in Dukem. The plant is owned by Kolya Manufacturing S.C. The plant is found in Dukem Industrial Zone and the company invested 50 million Birr. It was only after 3 years that the manufacturing plant came to fruition.

The plant, according to Fortune, sits on 2,500 square meters of land and it is fully integrated with with facilities for master disc manufacture, reproduction and printing of DVDs.

“We assure the best quality.Our machines can even reject discs if they do not meet standards,” said Yared Ademe, general manager of Kolya. “We invested 50 thousand Euros to buy quality assuring machine.”

The plant is going to be producing the populaf type of DVD; DVD 5. In addition to this, Kolya will be producing the latest version of DVD technology in the world; DVD-9 that has the capacity of 8.5 GB.

Kolya’s plant is said to have the capacity of producing 30,000 DVDs or 22,000 CDs every single day.

“Even though the demand for CDs and DVD has declined in the past decade, the items are not completely out of the market,” explained Elias Melka, well known music composer. Kolya’s General Manager also agreed with Elias’ view. “The demand is still very elastic,” said Yared. “It may seem disadvantageous to invest in the CD and DVD market. But we have made an assessment and found that the distribution channel is disturbed.”

“This will go some way to protecting music and films from illegal distribution,” Yared added.

Software developers, musicians and educational material developers are said to be the primary beneficiaries of the new plant.

Until Kolya, the sole CD producer in Ethiopia was Super Max Super Shine PLC. Super Max is owned by Indian investors and it became operational in Ethiopia 10 years ago.

Source: Fortune