Representatives from Ethiopia’s metal industry discussed the challenges facing the sector at meeting held last week.
Challenges include price increases, power cuts, taxes, the supply of scrap metal, capital shortages and the monopoly of the Ethiopian Shipping and Logistic Enterprise had the Ethiopian Association of Basic Metals and Engineering Industries to call for a public-private dialogue forum to support the sector.
The competitive advantage of domestic industries is adversely affected by the 5% import duty imposed on scrap metal exports while the finished product is imported duty free according to participants at the meeting suggesting the lift of import duty or develop a duty drawback scheme for domestic industry.
Engineering industries will need to enhance the production of machine tools to enhance the industrialization process by substituting expensive imports it was also suggested by the participants of the forum.The metal industry is growing with the nations industrialization efforts and requires more cooperation from the government it was said.
The Ministry of Industry acknowledges some of the challenges faced by the industry and is ready to discuss with the Metal and Engineering Corporation to address problems arising from the centralization of the supply of scrap metal under the corporation said Tadesse Haile State Minister for Industry.
The ministry is also aware of the need to solve power problems as well as addressing logistics challenges to save the cost of doing business he explained.
Source: Capital
