Ministry of Transport announced Ethiopia is going to start using Sudan’s main seaport for the importing goods.

Until now Ethiopia has been using Port Sudan only for the purpose of exporting its goods to the international market.

Getachew Mengestie, State Minister for Transport, said the move is taken by the Federal Government in the aim of meeting Ethiopia’s growing economic demand.

The Federal Government concluded an agreement with its Sudanese counterpart for the purpose of importing 50,000 Tones of fertilizers via Port Sudan, the State Minister explained. He furthered, “To solve the problem of storage space, a new 5 000 meter square storage facility has been opened a week ago around Mojjo”.

Currently Ethiopia uses port of Djibouti for 90 percent of its international trade. Nonetheless, the country is looking for alternative sea ports in neighboring countries in order to of Sudan, Kenya and Somalia to ease increasing dependency in Djibouti.

According to Sudan Tribute, the Ethiopian government is currently working with counterparts in the autonomous Somaliland region in Somalia to use Berbera port.

Ethiopia being one of the 16 land locked countries in Africa, its bill shows it has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars for port services.

Source: Sudan Tribune