Ethiopia is looking for Indian, Ukrainian and Turkish companies to supply steel billets to reduce manufacturing costs of the domestic steel sector.

The import of the billets will be facilitated by the Ethiopian Metal Industries Development Institute. The plan for the government import of the billet for the steel sector was generated within the industry said Workeneh Delelegn, Director General of the EMIDI.

The program is expected to benefit the seven Reinforcement Bar manufacturing industries currently in operation in the country.

The institute is expected to request a loan from the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia to facilitate the imports according to sources.

The imports will put the sector one step ahead as it allows for the manufacture of better quality re-bars according to an owner of one the steel factories. The low quality scrap metal that the companies are melting to manufacture the bars is of poor quality results in lower quality products he noted.

The manufacturers have been importing billet individually by this has been financial burdensome he noted.

Source: Fortune